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HITHERTO 
UNTOLD 



By 
Galusha Anderson, S.T.D., LL.D. 

Professor in University of Chicago 

Joint Translator of the Sermons of Asterius 

Author of The Story of a Border City During the Civil War 



The Lamp of Experience" 

— Patrick Henry 




Cochrane Publishing Company 

Tribune Building 

New York 

1910 



6 

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Copyright, 1910, by 
Cochrane Publishing Co. 



@CU256099 



CONTENTS. 

The Silver Caster 

Sheep in Other Folds . 

Inherited Appetite . 

Conversion Through Affliction . 

Words Worthless Without Example 

Flatter on Your Face . 

A River Man Converted . 

Covetousness Ridiculed . 

Tenpins .... 

A Visit to Richmond in 1859 . 

A Lubber's Look 

"And Sally Came" 

The Fading Nose 

Circumstantial Evidence 

Flowers in Desert Places . 

Special Providence .... 

Grace Versus Wine .... 

Shouting and Salvation . 

Enlightened by Sumter's Fall 

Fanning a Wounded Rebel 

Suffering by the Minute 

A Child Converted by Scripture 

Preaching Before Prayer 

Lilies Among Thorns 

On Granite ..... 

Four Drunkards . . 

A Fugitive Slave .... 

Beecher at the Twin Mountain House 

The Late Hon. Leland Stanford . 

Reminiscences of Spurgeon 

Lee Foresees Grant's Triumph 

A Reminiscence of Sherman and Grant 

New Testimonies Concerning Lincoln 



PAGE 

9 
15 
19 
23 

28 

31 

35 

39 

41 

46 

53 

57 

61 

66 

71 

75 

79 

83 

85 

88 

91 

94 

99 

102 

107 

113 

126 

133 

138 

142 

148 

151 

154 



To her, who, for forty-eight years, has been my wise 
counsellor and unfailing inspiration, this book is affec- 
tionately dedicated. 



FOREWORD. 

Many in our time are insisting on the incomparable 
value of experience. In this they are sustained by the 
Bible, which is largely a record of what men have seen 
and felt. But the religious experiences, which make up 
so large a part of both the Old and the New Testament, 
have been supplemented with like experiences down 
through all the centuries to the present day. Some of 
these experiences I have endeavored to portray in this 
book. I observed them all. Many of them are largely 
my own. It is my earnest desire by these experiences 
to stimulate and strengthen those who are engaged in 
the great work of saving men. 

I have also given a few personal reminiscences per- 
taining to some of our distinguished countrymen of 
the preceding generation, hoping thus to aid in justly 
piesenting their characters to those of the present day. 
I have also brought to light one interesting fact of the 
Civil War, which throws an important sidelight on the 
Virginia campaigns of Grant and Lee. 

Some chapters of this book have appeared in The 
Standard of Chicago. Recently I have revised these 
and added others. 

Nobody has aided me in this work and I have nobody 
to thank but the good Lord, whose wonderful grace I 
have tried to magnify in these pages. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Silver Caster. 

In St. Louis, many years ago, early one Sunday 
morning, two boys met, seemingly by chance, on a 
street by the side of which was a lumber-yard. At the 
end of a stack of boards, piled loosely for drying, at the 
same moment, they saw a silver caster. One of them 
was a newsboy, the other a student in Washington Uni- 
versity. The latter, a noble, generous soul, insisted 
that the newsboy should take the caster which had prob- 
ably been dropped by some frightened burglar. But 
the boy resolutely refused it, lest, it being found in 
his possession, he might be taken for a thief. 

This contention had already interested the student 
in his chance acquaintance, w T ho had under his arm a 
bundle of papers, and had just been crying, "Sunday 
Morning Republican! Sunday Morning Republican !' ' 
So he said to him: "Boy, why do you sell papers on 
Sunday? Is it right?" The boy replied: "I have to. 
My mother is very poor and sick, and I earn all the 
money we have; and we can't get along without what 
I earn on Sunday.' ' The heart of the student swelled 
up into his throat. He was himself poor, and strug- 
gling against great odds to get an education. There 
were fifty cents in his pocket, — all the money that he 
had in the world. "How much," said he, "will you 
take for those papers?" "Fifty cents," said the boy. 

9 



10 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

"Here it is," said the student, "hand me the papers. 
Now, where is your siek mother ?" The boy replied, 
"Down on Third street, three doors north of Pine, in a 
cellar." "I will call and see her after breakfast," 
said the student. 

An hour and a half later he had sought her out. She 
was in that part of the city which was given up to 
wholesale trade, in a dark, damp cellar. She lay on a 
tick of straw, with a few wretched rags for a covering. 
Her hair was a mass of tangles, her face pale and 
sunken, her eyes wild and staring, her fingers thin and 
bony; she was in the last stages of consumption. She 
was a widow, and her boy was her only solace and sup- 
port. Her heart was full of malignity and bitterness. 
The problem which has troubled men in all ages con- 
fronted her. If God, who made us, is good, why does 
he so often permit us to suffer excruciatingly? In her 
distress she raved: "God is not good; he's a tyrant; I 
hate him; he sends all this suffering on me." 

The timid student had never seen anything like this 
before. For a few minutes he was dumb with amaze- 
ment. At last the Master, whom he served, helped him 
to say : ' ' God is good, and he will help and bless you if 
you will only trust in him." He then read to her the 
Scriptures, and falling on his knees prayed God to have 
mercy and save her for Jesus' sake. Still her heart 
was not softened. The student turned away from 
what seemed to him a fruitless mission. He came direct 
to church. The morning service had just closed. 

Finding his way to the pulpit, he besought me to 
visit that poor, dying woman, for whose salvation he 
had been laboring and praying. 

In the afternoon I made my way to that dark cellar. 
I told the hopeless woman of the love of God in Jesus 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 11 

Christ, but apparently without any good effect. The 
very thought of God seemed to awaken all the vindic- 
tiveness of her depraved nature. However, her con- 
dition now being known, Christian women ministered to 
her necessities; and these gentle attentions in some 
measure calmed her agitated spirit, and awoke in some 
degree gratitude to her earthly benefactors. 

But let us now ask, who was this student concerning 
whom we have spoken? Whence came he? He had 
lived till a few months before near the Hudson river, 
in Eastern New York. His mother was dead. His 
father had married again. Many stepmothers are the 
salt of the earth, but this one did not belong to that 
class. She made the life of her stepson miserable, and 
he fled from his home. He had only one well-defined 
plan, and that it was to get away from his stepmother. 
With little money and much persistence he worked his 
way westward, till at last he reached St. Louis. Des- 
titute of both friends and money, he sought for work, 
and found it at the levee, where he was employed to 
paint steamboats. By his side there worked a man of 
small intellectual ability, who stammered so badly that 
it was difficult to understand him; but he was a 
Christian. That stammering tongue asked the young 
stranger to go to prayer-meeting. Having nothing to 
do when his day's work was over, that he might while 
away an evening hour the invitation was accepted. The 
meeting was earnest and spiritual. The young man 
was deeply impressed. When the congregation had 
been dismissed and he had stepped out of the room, he 
turned back for a moment, and through the partially 
closed door saw that the worshipers, apparently loth to 
quit the place, had broken up into groups, and were 
cheerfully conversing. Then the thought was fixed in 
his mind, "They have joys to which I am a stranger." 



12 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

He now felt deeply his need of salvation, and came 
to me for counsel. He was very ignorant of the gos- 
pel, but thoroughly in earnest. Soon a manifest change 
was wrought in him, but he had no apprehension that 
his new life had begun. I hesitated to tell him what 
I thought, wishing him to find it out for himself. For 
a time he was in poor health; so I took him to my 
own home and for a few days cared for him. During 
a morning walk I repeated to him the words: "If any 
man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are 
passed away; behold, all things are become new." 
"Why," he said, "that is just as I feel." "Do you 
know," I asked, "that those words are in the Bible?" 
He replied that he did not. "Well," said I, "when 
you get back to the house, take the concordance and 
look them up." He did so, and before night he came 
to me and said: "I think that I am converted, and I 
wish to make a profession of my faith in baptism." 
He afterwards told the story of his experience to the 
church, and I baptized him. 

Now there arose in this renewed soul a very intense 
desire for an education. Accustomed to shift for him- 
self, he set out to find a way in which a poor lad might 
prepare for college. He heard that certain gentlemen 
in the city owned scholarships, which, at their discre- 
tion, they could grant to young men, and that the tui- 
tion of those receiving them would thereby be provided 
for in any department of Washington University. He 
applied for one of these scholarships, and pressed his 
suit with such earnestness, saying, as he pleaded for it, 
"I must have an education," that it was granted to 
him, although the gentleman who conferred it was not 
favorably impressed with his intellectual ability. There 
was probably no happier lad than he on the continent 
that day. 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 13 

He now began his studies, and, while he had at the 
best only ordinary ability, made fair progress. He had 
determined to fit himself for the ministry and his high 
resolve awoke his dormant powers. While pursuing 
his studies he earned by manual labor his board and 
clothing. He was so self-reliant that no one knew of 
his extreme toil and privation. During a large part of 
each night, he blacked boots in the Lindell Hotel. It 
was at this period of his career that he met the news- 
boy and bought his papers, giving for them every cent 
he had that he might keep him, for at least one Sunday, 
from further Sabbath-breaking. 

But what became of the poor woman in the cellar, 
the newsboy's mother, who was so full of bitterness 
against God ? This young student visited her often. He 
led others to do the same. The love of God at last 
melted that hard heart. The dying woman repented; 
she believed; the peace of God filled her soul; she was 
saved. Those lips which had so bitterly cursed God, 
now blessed him. She died in blissful hope of eternal 
life. 

But the student meanwhile was sadly overworked 
and underfed. Still he was always so hopeful and 
cheerful that no one knew it, till it was too late. John 
Livingston, that was his name, was sick. He was ten- 
derly taken to a palatial home. Everything that Chris- 
tian love could devise was done for his comfort and re- 
covery. But the burning fever could not be quenched. 
Death was near, and the noble boy knew it. His plans 
for study, and for usefulness in the Christian min- 
istry, were broken up. "Man proposes, God disposes/ ' 
He had not, however, lived in vain. One poor, deso- 
late soul had been saved through his preaching and 
prayers, and was waiting, over on the other side, to 



14 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

receive him into the "everlasting habitations." He 
was resigned to the divine will. Just before he de- 
parted he said to a Christian brother, "0 how glad I 
am that I got Jesus before I got here!" He by faith 
had laid hold on Jesus, and Jesus in wonderful love 
had laid hold on him. So, he in Christ and Christ in 
him, he passed triumphantly up into the eternal glory. 

How manifestly God's providence is over not only 
the great, but also the humblest of the earth. How 
plainly God's hand is seen at every turn of our unpre- 
tentious story. The real things of life, if we will but 
mark God's presence in them, are vastly more fascinat- 
ing and instructive than the mightiest creations of the 
imagination. Time is a loom; men are but the threads 
through which the shuttle of the eternal purposes flies 
backward and forward, and God is the weaver. What 
fabrics of beauty are wrought out by divine wisdom! 

P. S. — A friend to whom I read the above, asked 
what became of the caster and the newsboy? The caster 
was found in Livingston's room after his death, evi- 
dently having been kept as a momento of the meeting 
at the pile of lumber ; and the newsboy became a mem- 
ber of the Sunday-school. Beyond this nothing is 
known by me. 



CHAPTER II. 
Sheep in Other Folds. 

In 1863, I lived in St. Louis, on Olive Street. My 
house, with two others, was built in a hollow of that 
rolling ground on which the city stands. The land to 
the north and south of my dwelling was then unoccu- 
pied. From my study window I looked northward up 
that verdureless valley, through which deep ditches had 
been cut by the swift and transient streams, which were 
at times created by copious showers. At the upper end 
of it stood a large, repulsive soap-factory, which now 
and then sent on the wings of the north wind its fetid 
odors to torment us. A little to the west and north of 
that malodorous landmark was a thickly-settled dis- 
trict in which my church was carrying on a vigorous, 
prosperous mission. A plain chapel had been built, a 
Sunday-school gathered, prayer and preaching services 
instituted, and a few souls had been gathered into the 
kingdom. 

In all that gracious work I had a constant and en- 
thusiastic interest. But the duties of my pastorate 
were numerous, my inexperience was marked, my anx- 
ieties were unduly and foolishly great, the vexations 
and responsibilities born of the war incessantly multi- 
plied, the weather was often hot and oppressive, and 
in spite of all my power of will, fits of the blues would 
occasionally seize me. At such times everything was 
going to everlasting smash, and there was no mistake 

15 



16 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

about it. Then came to mind the words: "If the foun- 
dations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" 
But the words immediately following these were for- 
gotten: "The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's 
throne is in heaven." 

The malady was desperate. Something must be 
done speedily to cure it. Peering out of my study win- 
dow towards the mission field, I firmly resolved that, 
if that painful depression of spirit ever again overtook 
me and I began to lose heart and hope, I would go 
straight up that desolate valley, on beyond that reeking 
soap-factory to the mission district, and there I would 
begin at the first residence to which I might come, and 
visit from house to house, preaching the gospel to all 
whom I might meet. One morning the blues came, I 
knew not how or why, but the remedy resolved on was 
resolutely applied, and worked a perfect cure. Before 
my first visit was over, my heart overflowed with peace 
and joy. 0, -brother in the ministry, if you ever have 
the "doleful dumps,' ' go at once to the homes of the 
poor, the sick, the wretched, make one honest attempt 
to save and comfort the erring and sorrowing, and in 
less time than it takes to write it, the Lord will fill your 
soul with gladness. It is a remedy worth trying. Sure 
cure warranted! 

In these visits not only the raven of sadness flew out 
of my heart, and the dove of peace flew in, but also a 
hundred invaluable lessons were taught me. Among 
other things I learned that the kingdom of God on 
earth was much larger than I had supposed it to be. 

One day I knocked at the door of a plain, two-story 
brick house. A nun, in a gray habit, with a string of 
keys dangling from her belt, opened it, and with gen- 
tle grace of manner bade me come in. At ojice I toI4 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 17 

Lei what I was doing, and begged her to pardon me 
for intruding into her home. She replied that it was 
no intrusion, and assured me that she was glad to 
meet one engaged in such w^ork. She requested me 
with such evident heartiness to sit down, that it would 
have been a discourtesy had I refused. Without effort, 
we fell into a conversation concerning Christian ex- 
perience. Her manifest knowledge of the subject led 
me at last to ask her, as delicately as I was able, if at 
any time she had experienced a change of heart, and 
had consciously begun a new spiritual life? "Certain- 
ly," she replied. "Will you be so kind," said I, "as 
to give me an account of your experience?" She at 
once complied, and told me how, a few years before, 
she had been convicted of sin, sought Christ as her 
Saviour, and found peace, hope and joy in believing in 
him. Knowing that the Roman Catholic Church taught 
that men could merit salvation by good works, I asked 
her if she relied on her own works for salvation, and, 
without a moment's hesitation, she answered that she 
did not, but alone on Christ. Her experience was so 
radical and clear, that, if she had told it to any evan- 
gelical church in Christendom, she would have been 
received for church membership without a dissenting 
vote. 

But, having such an experience, why was she content 
to remain in the Roman Catholic Church? I did not 
ask her, but to me the reason was plain. She had been 
brought up in that communion, and since her heart had 
been renewed by the Spirit she had devoted herself to 
the care of the poor. Her spiritual life constantly 
poured itself out in deeds of charity. Busy in her 
Master's work, she had never stopped to question the 
unscriptural dogmas of Rome. She was free in Christ, 



18 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

and did not feel the trammels of her church. She was 
saved by grace, and was quite unconscious that her 
ecclesiastical relations were inconsistent with her Chris- 
tian experience. 

At her own request we knelt in prayer, and then I 
went on my way. From that hour I had a broader 
charity. 

Years afterwards a Eoman Catholic lady in Brooklyn 
attended for many weeks the Sunday evening services 
of my church, because, as she told me, she found spirit- 
ual help in the truth which was there preached. She 
had the oversight of a hospital, and when any patient 
wished to see a Protestant minister she sent for me. 
When permitted to converse with her, I found her con- 
versation concerning the Christian life intelligent and 
heart- felt. She was evidently one of the Lord's own. 

His children are in all churches, Protestant and Ro- 
man Catholic, and often in no church. Their creeds 
may be false, but they are better than their creeds, and 
their lives are Christ-like. Heterodox it may be in the 
head, but orthodox in heart and in good works. They 
bring to mind the liberal and gracious words of Jesus: 
4 'And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; 
them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice; 
and they shall become one flock, one Shepherd.' ' 



CHAPTER III. 

Inherited Appetite. 

In an Eastern city, I once baptized on profession of 
his faith, a young man about sixteen years of age. Af- 
ter his baptism, just before the administration of the 
Lord's Supper, he asked, "Can I be excused from par- 
taking of the wine at the Supper ?" Explaining his 
unusual request, he told me that he had a craving ap- 
petite for strong drink, and feared that a taste of the 
wine might lead him into dissipation. In astonish- 
ment I asked: "Have you ever been in the habit of 
drinking?" "Oh, no," he replied, "I never tasted any 
kind of intoxicating liquor in my life." "And yet you 
say," said I, "that you have an almost overmastering 
desire for it? How can this be?" He replied: "It 
must be inherited. I deeply regret to tell you that my 
father is a hard drinker." With this sad fact before 
me, what answer should I have made to his request in 
reference to the Lord 's Supper ? I did say to him ; 
"If you believe that partaking of the wine will arouse 
your appetite for strong drink, do not taste it, but 
partake only of the bread." To this he gladly con- 
sented. 

Besides himself, the family to which he belonged 
consisted' of mother, sister and father. The mother was 
a quiet, but decided Christian. Over her son she had 
incessantly watched with an anxious spirit. For his 
preservation from the habit of drink, she had constant- 

19 



20 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

ly and importunately prayed. Her face was unusually 
sad, since a crushing burden ever lay upon her heart. 
But when her son was converted to Christ her coun- 
tenance was lighted up with a new hope. The little 
sister, modest, timid, shrinking, was an ever-present 
comfort to the sorrowing mother. But the father — 
this was the skeleton in the closet — was a drunkard. 
He was, however, one of those respectable drunkards. 
He was engaged in boating on Long Island Sound and 
the Hudson River. He had ability and prospered in 
his pursuit. For a time he was in command of some 

craft, and was known as Captain . He dressed well. 

He often donned a suit of broadcloth and a shiny silk 
hat. He seemed always to try to be presentable. He 
evidently had manly instincts. But his appetite for 
strong drink tyrannized over him. His will seemed 
powerless before the insatiable demon within. He 
drank constantly, but always strove to be in dress and 
manner a gentleman. He never fell insensible in the 
ditch ; if he drank to oblivion it was in the secret place 
of his own chamber. His life became one prolonged, 
genteel debauch — if that is not a contradiction of terms 
— which apparently would end only with his death. 
His inebrity became an awful disease. Alcohol ran in 
his blood, and saturated his brain. If his brain had 
been laid open, and a match applied, it would have 
burned with a blue flame. For many years that gen- 
teel, wretched life ran on. During those years he be- 
came a father, and by the subtle, inexorable law of 
heredity, his monstrous, clamant appetite for intoxi- 
cating liquor was transmitted to his son. What a heri- 
tage of woe! 

Now notice the innate appetite of the son. Soon 
after uniting with the church, he visited a sick friend. 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 21 

On a small table at the head of the bed stood a bottle 
of sherry wine. The attending physician had prescribed 
it as a tonic. The smell of the wine aroused his in- 
herited appetite. The consequent excitement threw his 
whole bodily frame into a tremor. It required all the 
will-power that he could put forth to keep himself from 
clutching the bottle, and drinking its contents. He un- 
dertook to move away from the bed toward the door, 
but his feet refused to obey his will. He laid hold of 
the bedstead with his hands and pulled himself slow- 
ly away from his fascinating foe on the table. At last 
he grasped the door-knob, said his adieu to his sick 
friend, opened the door, and with a strong effort 
stepped out of the room. But he was not yet free. He 
now felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to some 
drug-store or saloon and drink. He lifted his heart 
to God in prayer and received strength to go directly 
to his room in his own house. The dreadful spell, 
however, was still upon him. He opened his Bible and 
read, he knew not how long, and then dropping on his 
knees he prayed earnestly. At last in answer to his 
prayer deliverance came; the craving for strong drink 
for a time passed away. Still this awful desire for in- 
toxicating drink ever and anon sprang up within him, 
and whenever it returned the dread battle had to be 
fought over again. This young Christian soldier, how- 
ever, never yielded. His case was indeed a notable 
one. He had never tasted intoxicating liquor, and yet 
was doomed to struggle against an imperious appetite 
for it, an appetite which he had inherited from his 
father. 

The father at last died. The son refused to marry 
lest he might transmit the dreadful heirloom from 
which he had so acutely suffered to some unfortunate 



22 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

child. He found a place in the country where no in- 
toxicating liquor was sold. There he bought a small 
farm on which he lived with his mother and sister, that 
he might be removed from the numerous temptations 
to drink which beset men in a great city. 

This pastoral experience made prominent in my own 
mind an argument against intemperance which has 
not been sufficiently emphasized. Men ought to abstain 
totally from intoxicating drink for the sake of their 
posterity. The law of heredity acts inexorably. Par- 
ents transmit to their descendants their own moral like- 
ness. Who that has felt the horrors attendant on an 
appetite for strong drink would dare deliberately to 
become a parent, lest he might hand that heritage of 
woe down to his innocent children? 

A cheering truth comes to us from the case of the 
young man of whom I have written. The grace of God 
can help one to resist successfully even a strong heredi- 
tary appetite for intoxicating drink. The insatiable 
thirst for the cup may be stronger than the strong man 
armed, but God in Christ is stronger still. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Conversion Through Affliction. 

It is sometimes said, even by Christian pastors, that 
the sharp mental and emotional agony experienced on 
account cf the death of friends seldom, if ever, results 
in permanent religious benefit to the afflicted, if the 
afflicted are unregenerate. Those holding this opinion 
think that it is fully justified by the many cases in 
which, during the first bitterness of bereavement, re- 
ligious vows are tearfully made only to be disregarded 
and forgotten when the stress of sorrow has passed 
away. It is also held that this opinion has a sound 
philosophical basis. The loss of relatives by death, it is 
said, even the nearest, stirs only the natural affections, 
which are so distinct from the religious that the former 
may be profoundly agitated without at all affecting the 
latter. Cherishing a notion which seems to be so well 
grounded in fact and in philosophy, some pastors ex- 
pect little or no religious benefit, especially to the un- 
converted, from the sorrow of bereavement. But their 
philosophy may be at fault. The human mind is a 
unit. It acts as a whole in any given direction. What- 
ever affection is excited, all other affections are thereby 
modified. The excitement of the natural affections, 
even though they are distinct from the religious, opens 
an easy way to the latter. Christ, the greatest of 
preachers, distinctly recognized this when he appealed 
to parental affection, that he might lead men to trust 

23 



24 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

their Father in heaven for all needful things. To 
arouse natural affection merely for the pleasure of ex- 
ercising our power over susceptible, emotional souls, is 
wanton and mischievous; but to arouse it that we may 
reach through it the deeper religious affections is to 
follow in the footsteps of the prophets and of him who 
"spake as never man spake." So also when natural 
affection is stirred to its profoundest depths by be- 
reavement, we have through such agitation a rare op- 
portunity of turning the thoughts of men to God. And 
when we appeal to facts, while it is true that great af- 
fliction often fails to produce genuine repentance — a 
permanent change of life and conduct — it is also true 
that it frequently leads to this desired end. 

In illustration of this last declaration, let me relate 
an event which transpired in my college days, more 
than fifty years ago. The long vacation in summer 
came. Though but a callow youth, I went up among 
the Allegany hills in Southern New York to preach 
for a few weeks to a pastorless church. I had only 
three precious sermons. To my dismay, two-thirds of 
my sermonic stock was exhausted the first Sunday after 
my arrival. But God, in his providence, soon gave me 
such work to do that the sermons, with suitable dili- 
gence, took care of themselves. Events called them 
forth. 

In the town of my sojourn malignant scarlet fever 
appeared, and there was death and bitter sorrow. Just 
beyond the village lived a farmer. He was utterly ir- 
religious, but a good-natured, jolly sort of man. He 
had his companions of fun and frolic in the town. He 
and they were "hail fellows, well met." The farthest 
thing from their thought was personal piety, duty to 
God. But this young farmer had a Christian wife and 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 25 

two beautiful children, a daughter and son, aged, if 
I correctly remember, eight and six. That awful 
scourge, scarlet fever, which was steathily creeping 
from the village up the valleys, among the hills, at- 
tacked them both at once. Their playthings were 
thrown aside and the music of their prattle ceased. 
The skill of the physicians was baffled. Father and 
mother passed a few hours of awful anxiety, and then 
both of their loved ones were still in death. They 
were childless. How desolate were their souls! How 
empty and worthless was the world! Just at that su- 
preme hour of anguish I entered that house of stricken 
hearts. The mother was moving about with vacant 
look and tearless eyes. Her words were calm and 
breathed the spirit of resignation, but her grief was 
too deep for tears. The father was more demonstrative, 
but his ejaculations showed plainly enough that he was 
in spiritual darkness, and that his soul quivered with 
anguish. Novice as I was, what could I say to persons 
older than myself, and in such great sorrow? I was 
doing better than I then supposed. With a heart full 
of sympathy I was listening to their tale of woe. 

Years after, in pastoral work, the lesson was learned 
that the surest way to comfort the sorrowing is to listen 
sympathetically while they tell the story of their af- 
fliction. I was able, however, to speak a few words 
of comfort and to breathe a broken prayer. Then the 
father led me to an adjoining room; turning to me, the 
bitter tears coursing down his cheeks, with awful em- 
phasis born of grief, pointing to the dead bodies of his 
departed children, he cried: "I know what that means. 
God calls on me to turn around and go right the other 
way." I entreated him to listen to God's voice, spoke 
to him for forgiveness and comfort which he might have 
through Christ, and left him alone. 



26 HITHEETO UNTOLD 

Two days had passed since the funeral. In the still- 
ness of a summer evening I went up the valley towards 
that stricken home, apprehensive lest I might do more 
injury than good in my bungling attempts to comfort 
the bereaved. The house, a two-story, wooden build- 
ing, stood a little back from the public road. The path 
to the door was bordered by sweet-william. The door 
was ajar. I heard the voice of singing within. It was 
difficult for me to believe my ears. I knocked gently. 
The singing ceased. The afflicted father invited me in. 
He was alone. A single glance showed that a great 
change had taken place in him. There were lines of 
sorrow on his face, but at the same time it was lighted 
up with joy. He said: "You may have thought it 
strange that I was singing; but in spite of all my sor- 
row this has been the happiest day of my life. I am 
a new man with new hope; and I was singing some of 
the old hymns which my mother taught me when I was 
a boy." Before, I had wept with him, but now I had 
the inestimable privilege of rejoicing with him. God 
had led a soul through untold bitterness to unspeakable 
joy. The angels rejoiced in heaven, and we on earth; 
but heaven and earth seem to have met in that humble 
farm-house. 

A few days afterwards, when the report of his con- 
version had spread through the village, he asked me 
if I knew what his old cronies said about it. I told him 
that some of them said, "0, Jed will forget it all in a 
little while." 

He replied: "They know nothing of sorrow like 
mine if they think that I can ever forget it. The change 
in me is forever." 

I went back to my studies at college. Twenty-two 
years of a busy life had come and gone. One even- 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 27 

ing, in a city in Southern New York, I preached the 
annual sermon before the New York Baptist Ministerial 
Conference. Among those who greeted me after the 
sermon was my old friend whose heart God had touched 
and changed by thrusting him into the furnace of afflic- 
tion. My inquiry as to his spiritual condition was per- 
haps rather abrupt and urgent, for I had never heard 
a word concerning him for more than two decades. It 
was a great joy to learn that for some years he had been 
a faithful deacon of the very church which was then en- 
tertaining the State Convention. He was right when 
he said so long before, "The change in me is forever/ ' 
We should learn from this and similar incidents that 
when God breaks the hearts of men by great afflictions, 
he is calling en us to sow in those broken hearts, faith- 
fully and tenderly, the seed of his word. 



CHAPTER V. 
Words Worthless Without Example. 

Many years ago there lived in Rochester, New York, 
a man of mark, William C. Bloss. He had large ability 
and unusual force of character with a dash of eccen- 
tricity. On philanthropic themes he was a popular 
speaker, sometimes eloquent. He had a ready, spark- 
ling wit and, above all, he was a downright Christian, 
greatly interested in the work of saving men. 

At one time he represented his district in the State 
Senate. He was a conscientious, faithful legislator, 
and, on the whole, a fairly able one. In debate, he was 
quick and keen in retort. He was ever on the alert 
to seize every advantage. One day he had been advo- 
cating in a cogent speech a bill which he was anxious 
and determined to carry through the Senate. A mem- 
ber of that body, noted for the pomposity of his rhe- 
toric, vehemently opposed it. While delivering his 
long, verbose harangue, somewhat exhausted and 
thirsty, he called for water. Mr. Bloss was on his feet 
in a twinkling. He said, "Mr. President, I object/ ' 
"State your objection," said the president. "I ob- 
ject/' said Mr. Bloss, "to a windmill's going by water." 
This so turned the laugh on his opponent as to render 
the remainder of his speech worse than futile. This 
incident, often told, and sometimes erroneously at- 
tributed to others, helps to get before us the personal- 
ity of the man concerning whom I write. 

28 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 29 

In his old age I often met him. His mind was then at 
times unbalanced. Since his insanity was of a harmless 
type he was permitted by his friends to go where he 
pleased. His face, usually smooth-shaven, was, during 
these periods of insanity, covered over with a stiff, bris- 
tling beard; his hair was unkempt; his clothing dis- 
ordered, and his eye wild and piercing. He commonly 
carried under his arm, or in his hand, a Bible. While 
crazed, his intense nervous excitement found vent in 
advocating moral and religious reforms. In one of 
his fits of insanity, I saw him, Bible in hand, standing 
in the arcade, at Rochester, near the post-office, with 
a crowd gathered around him. In garb and manner 
he seemed to me like one of the old prophets. He 
opened his Bible and began to read the fifteenth verse 
of the second chapter of Habakkuk. The words were 
uttered with awful emphasis: "Woe unto him that 
giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to 
him, and makest him drunken also." "That," he 
cried, "is what God says; but the Common Council of 
this city says, ' License unto him.' God says, 'Woe'; 
they say, 'License.' " Then he denounced the Com- 
mon Council with scathing invectives and, turning to 
the fifth chapter of Isaiah, read, with the same terri- 
ble vehemence : ' ' Therefore, hell hath enlarged her- 
self, and opened her mouth without measure." Un- 
balanced in mind though he was, he seemed to be saner 
on the subject of the saloon than most of his fellow- 
citizens. The conscience of every man that heard him 
must have responded in approval of his words. 

The crowd around him increased. A very tall physi- 
cian, who, like Saul, the son of Kish, towered hend and 
shoulders above us, joined the throng and stood in- 
tently listening to the words of the crazy prophet. 



30 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

When there was a pause in his speech the physician 
said to us : " In gathering around our old friend and 
neighbor, Mr. Bloss. you are doing him an injury. 
You know that he is insane, and by listening to him 
you increase his nervous excitement and prolong his 
insanity. I ask you all, gentlemen, to disperse and 
leave him alone.' ' 

Mr. Bloss had seen the physician himself listening 
to him like the rest, and he saw him still standing there 
in the crowd which he was exhorting to disperse. Turn- 
ing his wild, glaring eyes upon him, in stentorian 
tones, he cried out: "Set the example, you old block- 
head! Set the example, you old blockhead !" 

Words roughly spoken in an insane frenzy, but they 
were so pat that the crowd cheered. In all the years 
which since have come and gone, whenever I have heard 
any man exhorting others to do what he himself re- 
fused to perform — and we have much of such exhorta- 
tion, and it is very cheap — those words of the crazy 
speaker, forceful, if not courteous, have involuntarily 
come to my mind: "Set the example, you old block- 
head!" 



CHAPTER VI. 
Flatter on Your Face. 

Long ago a prophet wrote: "The heart is deceitful 
above all things, and desperately wicked," or, as the 
passage is rendered in the new version, "It is desper- 
ately sick, who can know it?" The omnicient One, 
through the prophet, responds, "I the Lord search the 
heart." No one else is equal to such a task. It is not 
strange then that finite man, blinded by sin, is often 
deceived as to his own spiritual condition, and mistakes 
certain agitations of his feelings for genuine repen- 
tance. Any hint, therefore, which may help us to 
judge correctly the state of our own hearts will be wel- 
comed by every one who is honest with himself. 

In the winter of 1876-7, Mr. Moody and his co-work- 
ers held their meetings at the great tabernacle in Chi- 
cago. Every earnest pastor in the city did what he 
could to help on that masterful campaign against sin 
and Satan. Among those whose spiritual welfare I 
sought to promote was a man between thirty and forty 
years of age, called familiarly by his companions, 
George. 

When I first saw him, he was poorly, but not shab- 
bily dressed. One of his eyes, however, was slightly 
discolored, one cheek was bruised, and, suffering from 
some skin disease, his face was blotched. His whole 
appearance suggested that he had tarried long at the 
wine, or at that which was stronger, until he knew by 

31 



32 HITHEETO UNTOLD 

bitter experience what Solomon meant when he wrote, 
"At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an 
adder. ' ' 

But Christ came to seek and to save that which was 
lost, to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 
Believing with all my heart this great and gracious 
truth, the very desperateness of this poor sinner's case 
stimulated me to effort on his behalf. His apparent 
sincerity encouraged me. He evidently felt his weak- 
ness. He called at my house often. At each visit he 
wished me to pray with him and for him. He some- 
times with seeming earnestness prayed for himself. 
Still there was a shadow of doubt resting on my mind 
as to the genuineness of his conversion. He apparently 
made me his refuge, instead of the Lord. But since he 
confessed himself a sinner, and prayed, it was a dic- 
tate of charity to take the most favorable and helpful 
view of his case. "Charity thinketh no evil." 

At last, however, the genuineness of his repentance 
received a sharp and salutary challenge. He said to 
me one day: "I am a telegrapher, and I wish you to 
go with me to the superintendent of the Western Union 
and solicit for me a place on the staff of the company's 
operators.' ' It gave me unusual pleasure to grant his 
request ; it is a joy at any time to help one in his strug- 
gle for a better life, and in this case the desire for 
honest employment was to my mind another evidence 
of conversion. 

We entered the office of the superintendent. He was 
engrossed in his duties and could not at once give us a 
hearing. We waited patiently. At last he courteously 
asked what we wanted. I introduced to him my re- 
cently-found friend, and told him that he wanted some 
place as a telegraph operator; that he had not been in 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 33 

the past all that he should have been, but that he had 
now repented of his waywardness and wished to get 
down to honest work. The superintendent fixed his 
eyes on him for a moment, and then exclaimed, "O 
George, is that you?" In a low, timid tone, he re- 
plied, "Yes." To my great surprise, I had introduced 
the superintendent to an old acquaintance. He now 
turned to me and said: "This man for whom you are 
interested is the most skillful telegrapher in this coun- 
try. I know of no ear so delicate and accurate as his. 
He never mistakes the meaning of any click of the in- 
strument. We had unbounded confidence in him, and 
stationed him at Cleveland, a great telegraphic center, 
and put him in charge of all our interests there. But 
he would get drunk, and we were compelled to dis- 
charge him." 

"But," said George, speaking in defense, "when I 
was in Cleveland, my companions had a bad influence 
upon me, and led me astray; if it had not been for 

them I should not have drank; but now" . The 

superintendent broke in on this apologetic harangue: 
"0 George! have you repented? Do you really think 
you have? Don't deceive yourself. You will have to 
get down flatter on your face than that. No man ever 
yet repented who laid his sins to somebody else." 

His words like an electric flash vividly revealed a 
fundamental fact of genuine repentance. He had made 
a generalization absolutely, universally true. No man 
ever really repented who laid his sins to anybody or 
to anything except himself. David, in his great peni- 
tential psalm, does not even plead, in extenuation of 
his crime, his hot, passionate nature, but accuses him- 
self alone. He cries: "I have sinned, and done this 
evil in thy sight." "Purge me with hyssop, and I 
shall be clean," 



34 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

Appealing to me, the superintendent said: "What 
ought I to do? I have the names of fifty men who have 
made application for work. Forty-six of them are so- 
ber and true. Shall I give this man a place and deny 
it to one of these sober men?" I replied: "You evi- 
dently understand, your duty. I only wish to do what 
I can for this man who at least has professed repen- 
tance.' ■ Then, as though his own heart was touched 
for George, he said: "There is a place down in Arkan- 
sas — there is not much of it — perhaps I will send him 
down there. He is so capable — but on account of drink 
must take such a place as that, or none." 

That was the last I ever saw of George. But I came 
away with a generalization on repentance, flashed down 
so deeply and vividly into the depths of my conscious- 
ness, that it has been ever since part and parcel of my 
thought ; no man ever yet repented who laid his sins to 
somebody else. 



CHAPTER VII. 
A River Man Converted. 

The spiritual welfare of a multitude of boatmen on 
our great western rivers is sadly neglected. To be 
sure during the last quarter of a century some earnest 
organized effort has been made to remedy this grave 
defect; but forty or fifty years ago, most of the toilers 
on our Mississippi steamboats could truthfully say, 
"No man cares for my soul." St. Louis, the great cen- 
tral city of the Mississippi Valley, with its extensive 
river trade, became the home of many boatmen and 
their families. Here, when the steamers on which they 
were employed tied up at the levee for a few hours or 
days or weeks, they had the joy of spending the time 
with their households. 

In 1862 one of them returned to his city home, sick. 
The physician was called, who declared that he was 
suffering with consumption and could not live long. 
Being only thirty-seven years old and full of plans for 
the future, the announcement of the near approach of 
death at first seemed utterly to crush his spirit. A 
member of my church living near him, learning of his 
sad plight, visited him and tried to console him. His 
benevolent effort was however apparently absolutely 
futile. Thereupon he asked me to do what I could to 
comfort the disconsolate boatman. To this appeal I 
promptly and gladly responded. But when I reached 
that sick room a scene presented itself to me more sor- 

35 



36 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

rowful and heart-rending than any that I had ever 
before met. There was before me a young married 
man, hopelessly stricken with an incurable disease. 
Up to a few hours before he had had no suspicion of 
his real physical condition. The revelation made to him 
by his physician smote him like a thunderbolt from a 
clear sky. He lay prostrate in the dust. His agony 
of spirit could not be told. With flushed face, the sweat 
starting from his brow, he walked nervously to and 
fro across the room, convulsively clutching his hair, 
and with laboring breath cried: "The doctor says I 
can't live; but, oh, I'm too young to die! I can't die, 
I can't die!" Such intense and passionate words re- 
vealed the awful distress of his soul. 

I tried to comfort him with the truths of the gos- 
pel. But my effort appeared to be worse than vain. 
From boyhood he had worked on a Mississippi steam- 
boat. He knew nothing of Christ and the glad tidings 
which he brought to men. He was as ignorant of evan- 
gelical truth as a heathen in central Hindustan. So 
saying what I could, with aching heart, I was com- 
pelled to leave him in his agony and despair. But 
while awake I could not for a moment forget him. 
Early the next day I visited him again. I found him 
calmer in spirit, and was rejoiced to learn that my 
words of the day before had not been altogether in 
vain. He was ready, almost eager, now to hear me. I 
told him that God loved him, and that Christ came to 
save him from sin; that Christ died for him. As I 
tried in various ways to illustrate the truths that I 
uttered, it gave me great joy to see the tears start in 
his eyes and to hear him exclaim, ' ' Oh, say that again ! ' ' 
As I talked he believed. He had, to be sure, the most 
meager knowledge of the Gospel, but the great, central, 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 37 

life-giving truth that God in Christ was his Saviour, 
he dimly but truly apprehended, and with that vision 
his agitated spirit became serene. He who trod the 
waves of tempestuous Galilee whispered to his storm- 
tossed soul, "Peace, be still," and the peace of God 
that passes all understanding filled his heart. 

I poured out my soul in thanksgiving, and also 
prayed that the divine Spirit might illuminate his mind 
and guide him into all the truth. Then with my own 
soul filled with unwonted joy I confidently left him, as- 
sured that he who had begun a good work in him would 
"perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.' ' 

That he had been renewed by the Spirit of God was 
clearly manifest to all. It could now be said of him, as 
the Lord said to Ananias of the converted Saul, "Be- 
hold, he prayeth. ' ' Still, as he had never prayed before, 
he had no set words and phrases in which to express 
his desires to God; but he had found a divine Friend, 
who had given him a new life, delivered him from fear, 
and filled him with hope, to whom in childlike con- 
fidence he could make known his every want. So in 
just such language as in everyday life he would re- 
quest a favor of a neighbor or familiar acquaintance, 
he asked the Lord for what he wanted. In one sen- 
tence he prayed for something that would be good for 
him to eat, in the next that the Lord would forgive his 
sins. This strange commingling of petitions for body 
and soul almost in the same breath gave some Christian 
friends, who cared for him, so much anxiety that they 
reported it to me and asked what was best to be done. 
I at once replied: "Don't disturb him; let him pray 
in his own way, the stream will soon run clear." In 
communion with his Lord he grew rapidly in spiritual 
knowledge. Unwittingly he came to appreciate the rel- 
ative importance of physical and spiritual blessings; 



38 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

and while it was undoubtedly fitting for him to pray 
for either, some three or four weeks after his conver- 
sion I heard him pour out his heart in simple, artless 
language for his soul alone. Great as his bodily neces- 
sities were, he seemed to have quite forgotten them in 
the presence of his greater spiritual needs. 

While gradually wasting away he lived on for sev- 
eral months; but while his "outward man was decay- 
ing his inward man was renewed day by day." As his 
body grew weaker his spirit grew stronger. He did not 
worry, he did not repine. He was patient and cheer- 
ful. He was in blissful companionship with his Lord. 
In the dead of night the time of his departure came at 
last. He said cheerily to the Christian brother who 
was watching at his bedside, "I must go now, Jesus 
calls for me." It can't be possible," said his friend. 
"Oh, yes," he replied, "He calls me." Then he 
straightened himself in his bed, and, as calmly as he 
ever did any duty on a Mississippi steamboat, laid his 
left hand across his breast and with the emaciated 
thumb and forefinger of his right gently closed his 
own eyes. In a moment he had ceased to breathe. He 
thus passed on peacefully into "the valley of the 
shadow of death." He did not go alone. His Lord 
who came to receive him unto himself was with him. 

By his bedside stood his unconverted and weeping 
wife. As she gazed on the thin, pale face that seemed 
to have caught and held a gleam of the glory beyond, 
she sobbed ouc through her tears, "James had some- 
thing that I know nothing about, and I want it, too." 
She sought it and found it. A few weeks after I bap- 
tized her on the profession of her faith. So husband 
and wife, separated in body, were eternally united in 
spirit. One was in heaven, the other on earth, but 
both were in Christ. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

COVETOUSNESS RIDICULED. 

Years ago there was a great meeting of Methodists 
in Chicago. Among many important matters consid- 
ered by them was the condition of their benevolent en- 
terprises. It appeared from carefully compiled statis- 
tics that, for missions of all kinds, the Methodists of 
the Northern States during the preceding year had 
paid only thirty-eight cents per capita. An eloquent 
and humorous brother unfolded and discussed the 
whole subject before a congregation that filled to over- 
flowing a great audience room. He had only fairly 
begun his speech when all present saw that he was 
dead in earnest, and the throng of intent listeners was 
soon aflame with his enthusiasm. For a time he was 
compelled to handle stiff, cold statistics, but he so pre- 
sented them that they were not only convincing but 
eloquent. By them every mind was illuminated and 
every heart touched. The great throng before him 
was responsive and spellbound. They thought as he 
thought. His burning indignation was theirs also. At 
last he fell into a vein of ridicule. He said, "I am 
not on the committee for revising the hymn-book; ?f 
I were, I should go for striking out the last stanza of 
a great and glorious hymn: 

" 'Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small; 
Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all ! ' Thirty-eight cents 
a head!" 

39 



40 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

Still pouring out his humorous derision on covet- 
ousness he declared that "up in Wisconsin there lived 
a rich but penurious Methodist, who was never known 
to contribute anything either for missions or local 
church expenses. He had a little boy who had just 
donned his first pair of trousers and was as proud of 
his pockets as a peacock is of its tail. The little fellow 
had noticed that many people in the church dropped 
money into the contribution boxes and decided that he 
would do so, too. He became the lordly owner of a 
cent. On Sunday his father and mother took him to 
church. As usual a collection was taken, but neither 
of his parents gave anything. The boy became ex- 
cited, jumped off the seat, ran his hand down into one 
of his precious pockets, got hold of the only cent he 
had, and proudly dropped it into the contribution box. 
And just as the collector passed to the next pew he 
heard the little boy say to his father, 'If it hadn't 
been for me, this pew would have been whitewashed 
this morning/ " 

So the speaker, as he dilated on the too meager gifts 
to missions, re-enforced reason with ridicule. He ef- 
fectively exalted benevolence, but heaped reproach and 
shame on covetousness. All, as they listened, must 
have seen the blessedness of giving, and the meanness 
of using wholly for themselves what God has gracious- 
ly bestowed upon them. It was an able, humorous, 
wholesome address. We laughed, we cheered, we felt 
ashamed of our niggardliness, and not a few, I am sure, 
determined in the future to put more largely into ex 
ercise the too much neglected grace of giving. 



CHAPTER IX. 
Tenpins. 

A number of men, residing in a beautiful New Eng- 
land village, but doing business in Boston, found them- 
selves, when late in the day they returned to their 
homes, weary and exhausted and greatly in need of 
some helpful, restful recreation. After considerable 
discussion of the matter they decided to build a bowl- 
ing-alley, where, under cover, at the close of each day's 
labor, they could exercise, rain or shine. Soon the 
proposed alley was constructed, and duly equipped, 
and six days in the week, toward each evening, was 
heard there the rumbling of rolling balls and the sharp 
click of hit and flying pins. No one played for money, 
but all for much-needed physical exercise and the glory 
of winning. Nor were these business men exclusive in 
their sport. They generously granted to others in the 
village the use of the alley. I rejoiced in the physical 
strength which I there acquired, for the more efficient 
discharge of my duties in the Theological Institution, 
and there, too, the pastor of the Congregational Church 
often played, finding that the stimulating exercise aug- 
mented his power for study and forceful preaching, 
and for his manifold duties in the families of his con- 
gregation. 

For a time all went smoothly. But this pastor, 
greatly beloved in the community and most highly es- 
teemed by his denomination throughout New England, 

41 



42 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

had, by bowling for recreation in a tenpin alley, evoked 
the sharp condemnation of one of his own flock. This 
censorious critic of his pastor was well along in years. 
He was medium in height, erect, lean and wiry. He 
had a cold grey eye. In thought he was clear and in- 
tense. He had downright convictions and unfaltering 
courage. After having been vexed for weeks by his 
pastor's visits to the bowling-alley, he at last openly 
and vigorously protested against such unministerial 
conduct, and entered complaint against him before the 
church. So it was publicly announced that the church 
would consider his complaint on the evening of the next 
mid-week prayer-meeting. 

While not a member of the Congregational Church, 
yet being in the same condemnation with the good pas- 
tor and feeling that I ought not to desert him in his 
hour of trial, I ventured, with some misgivings as to 
the strict propriety of my act, to attend that meeting. 
On my arrival I found the chapel quite full, but the 
usher courteously conducted me to about the only re- 
maining unoccupied seat. 

Soon the pastor arose and fully stated the question 
that his brethren had been called to consider. He then 
read and carefully expounded the passages in Romans 
and First Corinthians, where Paul discusses the eating 
of meat that had been offered to idols. While the Apos- 
tle believed that in and of itself it was right to eat 
such meat, he declared that, if by so doing, he should 
lead his weak brother to offend, he would not eat it so 
long as the world stood. And it seemed to me, that 
the pastor in his exposition made the phrase "weak 
brother" quite emphatic. He now prayed fervently 
and tenderly; one of the brethren followed in an earn- 
est petition for wisdom and divine guidance ; "then we 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 43 

sang a. hymn that was a prayer for brotherly love; 
after which the pastor invited any that would to speak 
on the question before the meeting. 

The suppressed excitement was evidently intense. 
We all felt it. There were several speeches, all favora- 
ble to the pastor, who was really on trial. I will give 
the substance of two of these speeches. The brother 
who brought the charge against the pastor had failed 
to discriminate between the right use and the abuse of 
a thing, and some of his brethren were evidently intent 
on making him see his error. So one of them rose and 
said : 

"For the past few days I have been carefully consid- 
ering the subject of razors, and have been driven to the 
conclusion that the razor is a wicked instrument. How 
often have men used it to commit the horrible crime 
of suicide. Moreover, hundreds of times men, seething 
with wrath, have employed it to cut and slash others; 
and with it villains have cut the throats of their inno- 
cent fellow men. It has become one of the most com- 
mon weapons of murder. Brethren, I do not think that 
we should ever use a razor again, nor countenance any 
one that does use it. To have anything to do with it 
is to uphold suicide, assault and murder. The razor 
should be at once and forever banished from all moral 
and Christian communities. ' 9 

While this keen, ironical speech produced a ripple 
of laughter, it was clear to any onlooker that it added 
fuel to the fire. Another brother was at once on his 
feet. In a similar strain he ridiculed the accusation 
made against his pastor. He said: 

"I have been thinking about gravel. We have been 
accustomed to prize it highly as good material for 
making roads and walks; but it is beyond question 



44 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

very villainous stuff. It is a constant source of tempta- 
tion to the young, leading them directly to the vice 
of gambling. Boys almost universally use the coarser 
particles of gravel for jackstones. Soon they get to 
playing jackstones for candy or toys or cents, and by 
means of this pestilent gravel, the destructive habit of 
gambling is insidiously formed in their young minds. 
Noting this, it goes without saying that we should never 
have anything more to do with gravel. We should 
never again put it on our roads or walks; we should 
never handle it in any way; should never walk on it; 
should never so much as touch it. It corrupts our 
children; it is unqualifiedly wicked." 

The brother who preferred the accusation against 
his pastor was now thoroughly aroused; but he was 
master of himself. He spoke in his own defense. The 
sentences that fell from his lips were clear and crisp, 
although they came with a rush and angry snap. He 
accused his brethren of making light of an exceedingly 
grave and important matter. "There is," he said, "a 
law on the statute books of Massachusetts which specif- 
ically declares ninepins to be gambling, and, in the in- 
terest of public morals, decrees its suppression. Now 
how did bad men get around the law? Why, they just 
added one more pin, and made the game tenpins in- 
stead of ninepins." The audience laughed. How could 
they help it ? Still his whole speech showed that he did 
his own thinking and was not a man to be despised. 

But the last of this unique meeting was the best. 
The large-hearted pastor, full of the spirit of Christ, 
said that he believed it to be right to play tenpins for 
recreation; that for the past few months he had occa- 
sionally played the game here in our village, that for 
several years during his summer vacation he had 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 45 

played it in the "White Mountains, but he could get 
suitable exercise in other ways, by walking, horseback- 
riding or sawing wood; and if playing tenpins was go- 
ing to cause his brother to offend, he would play ten- 
pins no more while the world stood. His apostolic and 
Christ-like words lifted us up above all that was nar- 
row and selfish and mean. The church no longer had 
any cause for discussion or action. The magnanimous 
pastor had taken it all away. 

The meeting was about to close, when a young man 
seized the opportunity of stirring up his brethren to 
attend more faithfully to weekly prayer-meetings. He 
said: "I have not for months seen so many at the 
prayer-meeting. This subject has been unusually at- 
tractive, and I move that it be continued for another 
week." This was greeted with merriment. It was a 
rebuke so humorously administered that there was no 
sting in it, but it could not be easily forgotten. 

Then the pastor, who had freely and gladly re- 
nounced, for the sake of his "weak" brother, what he 
believed to be right, prayed and invoked upon us all 
the blessing of the forgiving God, and we went to our 
homes, wiser and, I trust, better men. 



CHAPTER X. 
A Visit to Richmond in 1859. 

In 3859, when a pastor in St. Louis, I was sent by 
my church as a delegate to the Southern Baptist Con- 
vention which, in May, met in Richmond. While on 
my journey to the capital of the Old Dominion I went 
as far as Washington over the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad. While passing through the Buckeye State, 
at a small railway station, two men, having in charge 
a negro handcuffed, came into the car in which I was 
sitting. I soon learned what this meant. The negro 
was not a criminal, unless it be a crime for a man to 
escape from bondage. Three years before he ran away 
from his Virginia master, and had since effectually 
hidden himself. He was a mulatto about thirty years 
old and in personal appearance prepossessing. Soon 
after his escape he married, and a child had been born 
to make glad his humble home. But his owner had at 
last ferreted him out, caused his arrest by due proc- 
ess of law, and the court, compelled by the inexorable 
statute, regardless of his wife and child, had sent him 
back to his old bondage. He was bearing up bravely 
under this sudden and sad reverse in his fortune, while 
those who had him in charge — one of whom was his 
master — were noisily hilarious. For some miles they 
and I were the only passengers in that coach. They 
saw me sitting by myself, and the master of the hand- 
cuffed chattel, coming to my seat, held out to me a 

46 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 47 

bottle of whiskey, saying familiarly, "Kunel, take a 
drink." I thanked him, saying that I did not drink. 
He rejoined, "What! don't drink? Better take 
some." 

He having imbibed enough to make him garrulous, 
told all about his slave; but he did not know how I 
detested him and pitied the poor, cowering bondman. 
When he had finished that shameful story, he went 
back to his slave and said: "Geo'ge, you like it better 
down in ole Virgin 'y than you do in Ohio, don't ye?" 
And poor, shackled George said, "Yes," with the cir- 
cumflex, which, of course, was a soft way of saying 
no. Two or three hours later, to my great satisfaction 
these men with their chained chattel left/ the car. 
George, torn from wife and baby, was nearing the 
blessed spot which he liked better than his home in 
Ohio. Just why on my way to Richmond, Providence 
so ordered it that I should see for the first and only 
time in my life a slave forcibly returned to bondage 
was to me a mystery. What I saw tended to awaken 
within me anything but admiration either for slavery 
or the fugitive-slave law. 

But on this trip one incident after another connected 
with slavery seemed destined quickly to follow each 
other. I got to Richmond in the afternoon, and found 
the Virginia Baptist Association in session. It was its 
last meeting before adjournment for the year. The 
brethren had been devising and discussing some meas- 
ures by which they might legally furnish the slaves 
with the New Testament. They had finally voted t 
print some parts of the Gospels in large, plain type 
and, so far as the consent of the masters could be se- 
cured, to circulate these scraps of Scripture among 
the bondmen of the State and encourage them to learn 
to read. It w$s a bold move on bejialf of the neglected 



48 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

and downtrodden, and was Christ-like. All felt its 
spiritual uplift. The time for adjournment had come. 
We were fervently singing the last stanza of the clos- 
ing hymn. The brother chosen to pronounce the bene- 
diction stood in the pulpit, facing the audience, whe 
suddenly back of him a door opened and a rough-look- 
ing business man entered, walked across the pulpit 
platform and stood close beside him who was about to 
bless us in the name of the Lord. Just as the last line 
of the hymn had been sung, and the hush of voices had 
come, the intruder upon our worship called out with a 

strong, rasping voice: "Is Mr. in the house? If 

he is, I wish to inform him tfyat his girl Sally is in the 
jail, and he can have her when he goes there and proves 
his property.' ' Then the ambassador of Him who com- 
manded us "to let the oppressed go free," lifted up his 
hands and pronounced upon us in the name of the 
triune God an Apostolic benediction. Was there ever 
anything more shockingly incongruous? I am sure 
that many in that great assembly were, like myself, 
hotly indignant. 

In the evening the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop of Bos- 
ton addressed the Y. M. C. A. of Richmond in the meet- 
ing house of the First Colored Baptist Church. This 
church numbered more than three thousand. Its audi- 
ence room was necessarily large and though plain, was 
cheery and inviting. At the hour appointed for the 
address it was well filled with the well-to-do, intelligent, 
Christian people of Richmond and the surrounding 
towns and cities. The great audience was eager to see 
and hear the Massachusetts statesman. Governor Wise 
presided and introduced the speaker in a happy, gra- 
cious speech. He dilated on their former pleasant as- 
sociations in the House of Representatives, 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 49 

When the orator rose to speak the hand-clapping 
was hearty and prolonged. Before launching out upon 
his premediated address he said that if any present 
should object to some things he was about to utter, his 
only apology was that he first wrote his lecture for the 
Y. M, C. A. of Boston, and did not have "one mouth 
for Boston and another for Richmond. " This manly 
and brave declaration was greeted with general and 
hearty applause. But the times were ticklish. Th 
public mind North and South was inflamed on the sub- 
ject of slavery. An unwary spark might cause a con- 
flagration. And that great audience was manifestly on 
the qui vive to learn what it was in that chaste, elo- 
quent speech to which they perhaps could not assent. 
At last the speaker reached the obnoxious passage. 
It was simply this, that slavery as it then existed in 
the United States could not for a moment stand the 
test of the New Testament. The orator's statement 
was unequivocal and luminous. His thought was thor- 
oughly analyzed and forcefully presented. While he 
was uttering it that great audience was as still as a 
stone. At the pauses between the sentences I heard 
the flickering of the gas. When the passage was fin- 
ished there was not even the slightest sign of approval. 
Out of cold courtesy it was silently, sullenly endured. 
But on the part of the speaker it was one of those cour- 
teous acts, which must have stirred deep down in the 
souls of many who differed from him, genuine and gen- 
erous admiration. 

The next day, Sunday, the sessions of the Convention 
began. In the morning Dr. Richard Fuller of Balti- 
more preached the opening sermon. His subject was 
"Doubting Thomas." His method was expository. 
His diction was clear and simple. His thought was 



50 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

interesting and at times vigorous. He painted scenes 
with great vividness, and in some passages was wonder- 
fully pathetic. He laid seige to my heart and quickly 
took it. When he had spoken his last word I could 
but say, " He is a prince among preachers. ' ' I have since 
read that sermon, but in cold type it is but a very faint 
suggestion of what it was when uttered. The tones of 
voice, the flashing eye, the spontaneous interpretative 
action and characteristic emphasis of a speaker can 
never be conveyed to us through the printed page. 
Mere thought may be suggested by printed words, but 
the heights and depths of glowing passion never. 

At the close of the morning's service, a noted Baptist 
pastor of Richmond invited me to dine with him. His 
hearty invitation was gladly accepted. I met at his 
table half a dozen Southern preachers. Their conver- 
sation, lighted up with humor, was entertaining and 
provocative of thought. After dinner mine host said: 
"Will you have a cigar ?" "No, thank you." "Will 
you take a pipe, then?" "No, I thank you, I don't 
smoke." "What," he exclaimed, "don't smoke! Why, 
you are not orthodox!" He himself smoked a Turkish 
pipe, the narghile, with its long, flexible tube, the smoke 
passing through water before it reached his mouth. 
Every minister present except myself smoked either 
cigar or pipe, and I, a young man, there learned one 
item of oi-thodcxy south of Mason and Dixon's line. 

In the afternoon and evening the preachers who were 
delegates to the Convention were invited to fill the vari- 
ous evangelical pulpits of Richmond. It fell to my lot 
to preach at the Second Presbyterian Church. Thirty 
or more years afterwards I was invited to return to 
Richmond, and repeat, if possible, the same sermon, in 
the same pulpit, at the same evening hour. But to my 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 51 

great disappointment I was unable to respond to that 
courteous and unique invitation; still, had I been abl 
so to do, I could not have repeated a sermon that I de- 
livered extemporaneously thirty years before, and if I 
could have recalled it I would not have preached it, 
since, to my own notion, I had long before outgrown it. 
While in Richmond I received the most lavish hos- 
pitality under the roof of an Episcopalian. He was a 
flour manufacturer and evidently a man of wealth. He 
spared no pains to make his guests comfortable and 
happy. His house was large, beautiful and richly fur- 
nished. His table was loaded with appetizing food 
both from home and foreign markets. But in this ele- 
gant Christian home I was not to escape the then 
ubiquitous question of slavery. One of my fellow guests 
was a deacon of a Baptist church in Georgia. He was 
very gentle in manner, but a manly man withall. I 
was mightily drawn to him and he seemed to be to me. 
It was clearly a case of love between two men at first 
sight. But I discovered that he was greatly troubled 
in mind about something. He soon requested a private 
interview with me. I invited him to the seclusion of 
my own room. He naturally thought, since I hailed 
from a slave State, that I like himself was pro-slaver^ 
in sentiment, so with perfect confidence he unfolded to 
me his sad tale, and asked for my advice. He said 
that he owned a plantation in Georgia and, as the years 
went by, the pail grew less and less productive, while 
his slaves multiplied so rapidly that every year it be- 
came more difficult to raise enough to sustain adequate- 
ly both his household and them. At last, driven by 
necessity, he seemed compelled either to abandon his 
plantation, or to sell some of his slaves to make ends 
meet. But he had never sold one of his fellow men and 



52 HITHEETO UNTOLD 

his moral sense revolted against such an act; and in 
evident agony of spirit he asked me what I thought he 
ought to do. 

My sympathy was profoundly stirred. He had not 
the slightest suspicion that in every fiber of my being 
I was utterly opposed to slavery in all its forms; that 
he was in fact asking advice of a conservative but un- 
compromising abolitionist. I did not feel it incumbent 
on me to reveal to him my innermost thought of slavery. 
He was my Christian brother, and through no fault of 
his own he was in deep trouble. His slaves were an 
inheritance; his conscience forbade him to sell them. 
And while I abhorred slavery, I loved my brother who 
had been born and bred in the midst of it, and with a 
full heart, I said to him: "It is always safe to obey 
one's conscience, come what may, while to disobey it 
morally corrupts the soul. If you cannot sell your 
slaves with a clear conscience, then, in my judgment, 
you ought not to do it, whatever may be the conse- 
quences. ,, Such, at least, was the burden of my coun- 
sel. He heartily assented to my position, and was evi- 
dently relieved in mind. I never saw, or heard from 
him again, but I shall never forget that pensive, win- 
ning face. We were unwittingly on the eve of a great 
civil war that was destined to brush aside all such dis- 
tressful questions of conscience, but I could never 
cease to hope that my troubled brother managed in 
some way unflinchingly to maintain his moral integrity 
by refusing to sell the slaves that had been transmitted 
to him by inheritance. 

Such are some of the incidents of my visit to Eich- 
mond a little less than two years before the attack on 
Fort Sumter and the beginning of the civil war in 
which slavery, in whose defense it was waged, perished. 



CHAPTER XI. 

A Lubber 's Look. 

Many years ago, in a New England seaport, there 
lived a bright boy. He was frank, open-hearted, social, 
generous. Such qualities made him popular with all. 
His studies at school, easily mastered, were pleasures 
rather than tasks. With all his heart he entered also 
into the sports of his schoolmates. He was fond of the 
ocean. Ships and sailors were his delight. He heard 
the oft-repeated story of the clumsy country lad, who 
shipped for a voyage at sea and was sent up into the 
rigging to unfurl a sail, and, growing dizzy, was about 
to fall, when the boatswain, seeing his imminent peril, 
cried out to him, "Look aloft, you lubber," and how the 
upward look saved him. The noble boy knew not then 
that thoughts and images were being woven into his 
memory, which, in after years, would be the means of 
saving him from a more awful fate. 

As his mind unfolded, ambition was born within him 
to take a course of study in college. He now gave him- 
self with enthusiasm to mathematics, Latin and Greek. 
Having more than ordinary ability to acquire knowl- 
edge, he was soon ready for his entrance examination, 
which he passed without conditions. He was at last a 
proud freshman at Tale. He soon became an acknowl- 
edged leader both in the class-room and in college 
sports. But — what awful revelations frequently lie 
just beyond that disjunctive, "but" — he had one great 

53 



54 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

weakness ; he was easily overcome by wrong social influ- 
ences. Those royal fellows with whom he associated 
thought it a manly thing now and then to drink wine 
and brandy; and when they said to him, "Come, let's 
have a glass," he did not seem to have power to resist. 
Conscience reproved, but was unheeded. Friends 
pleaded with him, but with proud scorn were assured 
that he had perfect control of himself; he could drink 
or let it alone as he pleased. Well, he could then, and 
that was just the reason that his best friends so im- 
portunately urged him to let it alone, feeling sure that 
his control over his appetite would sooner or later be 
lost. 

He graduated from college with honor. He studied 
law and was admitted to the bar. He became a prac- 
titioner in a large city. He had in him the possibilities 
of a great man, and rose rapidly in his profession. 
But, — again this fearful ' ' but ' ' ! — he kept on drinking. 
All the time he was befooled with that baseless notion, 
that he was master of himself. At last the horrible 
revelation dawned upon him that he had lost his lib- 
erty. The bands which bound him were stronger than 
adamant. He was just what no man could ever have 
made him believe he would be, — a drunkard. His cli- 
ents fell away. Both reputation and money were gone. 
With shame he crept out of the great city, and found 
his way to Western New York, where he bought a farm 
on credit. 

Separated as he was now from his old haunts and 
companions in sin, he began to hope that he should be- 
come a sober man: if not a great lawyer, at least a re- 
spectable farmer. With sobriety came prosperity. His 
land yielded an abundance. He began to pay for his 
farm and was happy. But, — this awful disjunctive 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 55 

once more, — a mile and a half from his house there was 
a wretched country tavern. It was a square, two-story 
brick structure. On the lower floor was the barroom, 
with its uncurtained windows, box-stove, unpainted, 
backless benches by the walls, and straight-backed 
wooden chairs. The shelves of the bar were adorned 
with pink, sawtoothed paper. On the shelves were de- 
canters of whisky, rum, gin and brandy. Here and 
there could be seen a lemon perched on an overturned 
tumbler. The whole room was pervaded with that in- 
describable, repulsive smell which has been monopo- 
lized by country taverns. 

In that barroom, the topers from all the country 
round about congregated on stormy days and in the 
evenings. There they retailed the gossip of the neigh- 
borhood, told yarns, talked politics, smoked their cob 
and clay pipes and drank. Our farmer, always social, 
was drawn into this company. The demon which he 
had thought cast out, was only sleeping within him, 
and awoke. He returned to his old habit. Night after 
night he spent in that barroom. His farm was neg- 
lected; his family were in despair. One day late in Oc- 
tober, after midnight, he staggered out of the tavern 
and started towards his home. The moon shone clear, 
the air was frosty. A quarter of a mile down the road 
was a well, a pump and a wide watering trough, par- 
tially filled with water. He reeled against it. He 
seemed to think it his bed, and lying down in it, fell 
into an unconscious stupor. He partially awoke as the 
first rays of the morning were shooting up the eastern 
sky. There was a film of ice over the water. His legs 
were benumbed so that he could not move them ; but his 
arms, untouched by the water, were still under control 
of his will. Yet, he did not realize where he was. The 



56 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

water brought back to his mind the sea, and all that he 
in boyhood had seen and heard there. And now a 
voice sounded in his ear, it seemed to him to be as loud 
as the thunder, "Look aloft, you lubber!" 

He struggled to get out of his icy bed, but not suc- 
ceeding, lay still again. Then, the second time, that 
voice, even louder than before, sounded in his ear, 
"Look aloft, you lubber !" Another and greater 
effort, and he was on the ground by the watering 
trough. Full consciousness returned. He chafed with 
his hands his benumbed limbs. At last he rose to his 
feet and went slowly towards his house, just as the sun 
rose. He could not forget the voice; he did look up, 
and that upward look saved him. The morning had 
come to his soul as well as to the earth. He drank no 
more. Under his intelligent tillage his farm rippled 
with golden grain. Plenty and peace were in the house. 
He became an apostle of temperance, and spoke to 
great throngs with unusual eloquence. He could not 
obliterate the past, but it was forgiven. He loved God, 
and he loved man. In what wonderful ways God saves 
men! The lessons of my story are so plain that there 
is no need of pointing them out. 



CHAPTER XII. 
"And Sally Came." 

During the war of the rebellion I was a pastor in a 
border city. Some of the flock committed to my care 
lived in the country. It was a pleasing duty to visit 
these families now and then in their rural homes. For 
a few hours, at least, it took me beyond the bustling 
streets full of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious 
war," and refreshed my jaded spirit with the quiet 
and beauty of verdant fields. 

On one of these pastoral excursions I received the 
gracious hospitality of an aged and wealthy woman. 
At the close of my visit in her spacious and well-fur- 
nished house, she invited me to go out to the slave- 
quarters and see an aged negro. To have done this 
without an invitation, might have been an affront; but 
since it was her expressed wish it would have been a 
discourtesy to have refused. She was truly pious and 
in no way responsible for being the owner of slaves. 
They had been left her by her late husband and, with- 
out any choice on her part, were on her hands to be 
cared for; but while they were her chattels, she had 
no thought of selling them, and her special wish that 
I should converse with them in reference to their sal- 
vation showed that she had solicitude for their spiritual 
interests. She directed me to the house of old Joe, who, 
for a long time, had been the preacher and religious 
leader of the negroes on the plantation. 

57 



58 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

The slave-quarters were just an irregular row of log 
shanties. Each hut had but one room. In some of 
them there were puncheon floors, in others the bare 
ground was the floor. They were unplastered, though 
the chinks between the logs were filled with mortar or 
mud. Each cabin had one or more windows consisting 
of four small panes of glass; but some of the panes 
were broken, and to keep the wind out, cast-off rags 
filled their places. By the end wall was an open fire- 
place where the hoecake was baked. Two or three 
wooden chairs, an unstained pine table, a doorless cup- 
board, a corded bedstead, a few dilapidated pots and 
kettles, some brown dishes, and a set of mismatched 
knives and forks constituted the principal articles of 
furniture. The ordinary fare of the slaves was the 
simplest and the coarsest; in such things they had no 
choice. Owned like the cattle, like the cattle they ate 
what was provided for them. Still, some of these log 
cabins were more neat and comfortable than others; 
the difference arising from differences in the charac- 
ter and habits of their occupants. 

On the day of my visit, since the other slaves were 
at work in the fields, my time was spent in the hut of 
"Old Joe." He had seen more than ninety years. He 
was tall, his body somewhat bent, slightly bald, with 
woolly grey locks about his ears. He spoke of his work 
as a preacher, and said that in past years he used to 
hold four or five meetings a week, but now that he was 
old and troubled with rheumatism, he could hold but 
one. He and his wife were spending their last days in 
that log-cabin; which was probably more comfortable 
to them than a palace would have been. 

We talked on religious subjects. Although he could 
not read, he often quoted Scripture. He never once 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 59 

missed the correct sense of any passage to which he re- 
ferred, and most of his quotations were made with ac- 
curacy. He had a rich Christian experience. The di- 
vine Spirit had been his teacher. I had entered his 
cabin to comfort him; but he instead was comforting 
me. I had come to teach him something, but lo, he had 
become my teacher in divine things, and I was gladly 
sitting at his feet that I might learn. During that won- 
derful conversation he often spoke of his Saviour as 
"God in Christ/' Where he had learned this phrase, 
suited to the lips of a theologian, I knew not; but in 
every instance he used it with strict propriety. The 
words of an inspired apostle came to mind : ' ' Hath not 
God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and 
heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them 
that love him?" 

He finally referred to his past history. He was born 
a slave in Virginia, and spoke of the kindness with 
which he had always been treated. His master deter- 
mined to emigrate to Missouri. "This," he said, 
1 ' made me very sad, because my wife was owned by an- 
other master. it was so hard to leave her! The 
night before we were to start on our journey, I went 
three miles to her plantation; we talked till midnight, 
and then we parted, never expecting to see each other 
again. On my way back I thought that I had not 
asked the Lord about it. So I got down on my knees 
in the road, and I asked the Lord to send Sally with 
me; and Sally came." He did not tell me how the 
desire of his heart came to be fulfilled. My curiosity 
was excited to ask, but I restrained it. The prayer and 
its answer stand side by side in my memory, just as 
"old Joe" put them, "I asked the Lord to send Sally 
with me, and Sally came." And there she then sat by 
us, a woman of eighty-five. 



60 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

We knelt in prayer, and poured out our hearts to 
God, I, a free man ; he, a slave, but both in Christ Jesus 
in whom "is neither bond nor free." The slave hut 
was a Bethel. Our petitions were breathed out into 
God's ear and heart. I grasped the black, horny hands 
of my brother and sister in Christ, Joe and Sally, and 
bade them good-bye. They are now both safe over Jor- 
dan. The log-shanty has been exchanged for a man- 
sion in our "Father's house.' ' 

This is a picture, unskillfully painted though it be, 
that had a thousand counterparts in those by-gone days 
of slavery. Many a bondman, bought and sold and 
whipped, was dear to the heart of Christ, and in a 
wonderful way was taught by the Spirit, — a slave, yet 
numbered with the godly whom the Lord "hath set 
apart for himself." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Fading Nose. 

On one of the principal streets of a small but thriv- 
ing Western city, there stood a meat-shop. The owner 
of it was a man of marked individuality. He stood 
over six feet in his stockings, was well-proportioned, 
although somewhat corpulent, and weighed over three 
hundred pounds. He was an enormous eater, especially 
fond of corned beef and cabbage. He drank freely, 
but was seldom, if ever, intoxicated. His nose, un- 
usually large, was the telltale of his drinking-habit. 
His draughts of distilled liquor had painted it as red 
as the head of a turkey-gobbler. Still, in this great 
body, beneath that rough, red nose, there beat a gener- 
ous heart, and the whole town knew Captain as 

a royal good fellow. 

His wife was a gentle, delicate, refined woman. She 
had light brown hair, blue eyes, was of medium height 
and slender. She always dressed daintily and taste- 
fully. When she walked by her husband, the contrast 
was striking and amusing. Her heart often ached be- 
cause he tarried long over his cups, but strange as it 
seemed, she loved him tenderly and truly, and he in 
turn worshiped the very ground on which she stood. 
Their union was hallowed and blest by the birth of a 
son who inherited the gentler traits of the mother. 
This child greatly strengthened the bond of love be- 
tween his parents, and unwittingly exerted a mighty 
influence for good over them both. 

61 



62 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

His mother was a Christian, never demonstrative, 
but always persistent and consistent. She brought her 
only child to the Sunday-school, and the preaching 
services. But the husband and father never came. He 
belonged to the world ; and while his wife and son were 
in the house of God, he, with his companions in sin, was 
gorging himself with food and drinking the intoxicat- 
ing cup. It is doubtful if any Christian in the whole 
city ever thought it possible for the Captain, glutton 
and drunkard as he was, to be converted and saved. 
But our thoughts are not God's thoughts; as the heav- 
ens are higher than the earth, so are his thoughts 
higher than our thoughts. He had purposed to save 
this man given to appetite, who, in a land of Sabbaths 
and churches, had not attended any religious service 
for fifteen years. And how gently and wonderfully 
God did it ! 

The little son of the household became deeply inter- 
ested in a course of biblical, historical sermons, which 
were delivered Sunday evenings. He wanted his father 
to hear them. He had no thought of doing his father 
good; to him his father was the best of men. But the 
child had found rare enjoyment in Bible history, with 
its practical lessons, and he wished his father, whom he 
so ardently loved, to share his pleasure. So he told him 
artlessly what he had heard, and then, climbing up 
upon his knees, and looking wistfully into his eyes, he 
said, "Papa, won't you go to church with me to- 
night?" The Captain was at once conscious of some 
strange, but mighty influence, which was touching, 
penetrating and softening his heart. Thoughts of re- 
ligious things woke within him. It required a strong 
effort of will to deny the winning, persistent pleading 
of his child. Especially had the words, "go to church 



HITHEETO UNTOLD 63 

with me," moved him deeply. Where would he not go 
with his boy? Still he did not yield, but said, — his 
heart somehow swelling up into his throat, — "No, 
not to-night, my son," and passionately kissing the 
dear boy, he went out to seek his old haunts of sin. 
But as, half irresolute, he sauntered along, thoughts of 
higher and nobler things flitted through his mind, 
and his heart was strangely agitated with tender emo- 
tions. Later in the evening, he was dimly conscious 
that his old associations, and the indulgence of his ap- 
petite, had in some way, lost half their former zest. 

A week passed by. His little, curly-headed son 
climbed again upon his knees, and told him about the 
sermon of the previous Sunday evening, and with 
greater urgency than before asked him to go to church 
and hear the pastor. The Captain could hold out 
against such entreaty no longer; but proud of spirit, 
said he had no seat, and would not go till he had pro- 
cured one. 

Early Monday morning he made application for a 
pew, and asked for as good a one as there was in the 
house. He was told that the best sittings were all 
taken. But a good brother, whose pew was in the cen- 
tral aisle, said: "The Captain may have my pew; I 
will take one in the corner, and give as much for it as 
I have been giving for the better one." God bless such 
brethren! The Captain thanked him for his great 
kindness, and then insisted on paying for the pew in 
advance for the whole year. During the week he de- 
termined to occupy it at both of the services on next 
Lord's day. On Sunday forenoon, the Captain, with 
his wife and son, walked down the middle aisle, and 
took their places in the pew which he had so gener- 
ously provided. It produced a sensation. The thought 



64 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

of the people evidently was that the unexpected al- 
ways happens. It was so strange to see that rum-blos- 
somed nose in a pew in the central aisle. But on that 
morning, the Captain's step was firm and decisive, as 
though he were a little proud of the victory which he 
had achieved over himself, and the face of his wife was 
radiant with hope and joy, while the little boy's heart 
overflowed with gladness which came from the con- 
sciousness of being with both father and mother in the 
house of God. 

Months came and went. The Captain with his happy 
family, was always in his pew on Sunday. He listened 
eagerly to the sermons. If to others the message from 
the pulpit was ever trite, to him it was always fresh. 
He was evidently learning for the first time the great, 
saving truths of the gospel, and he was fascinated by 
them. But he was silent. He made no open confession 
of his sins. He did not say to any one, "I believe in 
Jesus Christ as my Saviour." But he was thinking. 
He quietly dropped his old cronies. His nose was the 
outward index of what was taking place in his inner 
life. By degrees it lost its deep red hue. Week by 
week it was fading out. Each Sunday it was lighter 
than it had been before. It said more emphatically 
than words could have uttered it, The Captain has put 
away the intoxicating cup. At last you could not dis- 
tinguish it by its color from other noses in the congre- 
gation; it had just a healthful flesh tint. 

He now came to me and uttered with his lips the tale 
which his nose had already told. He said, "I am a 
different man from what I was once. My appetites 
are conquered. I do not drink now. I pray in my 
family. I shall soon be ready to make a profession of 
my faith in baptism." This purpose was never ful- 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 65 

filled. Not long afterwards he unexpectedly passed 
away; but he died in faith, regenerated, washed, sanc- 
tified, saved. 

Repentance does not consist in feeling bad on ac- 
count of our sins. Many weep over their sins who 
never repent of them. Repentance is a radical change 
of the mind and the heart, and of the outward life. The 
Captain's fading nose was a clearer, more decisive 
evidence of his repentance than any tears or words of 
his could possibly have been. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Circumstantial Evidence. 

Early in the summer of 1861, the commander of the 
Army of the Potomac, Irwin McDowell, was seen on 
several different occasions, riding on horseback across 
the country, between the different encampments of his 
troops, his eyes shut, his nose and cheeks red, his head 
hanging on his breast, and, from the motion of his 
horse, helplessly rolling from side to side. Most ob- 
servers would have concluded that he was oblivious 
from drink. Many witnesses declared that in their 
judgment he was drunk. 

On July 21, he fought the first battle of Bull Run. 
This battle was carefully and admirably planned and, 
with one fatal exception, the plan was fully carried 
out. He ordered two brigades to cross Bull Run, a 
little above Sudley Spring, to his extreme right, at six 
or seven o'clock in the morning. But the difficulties 
were greater than had been anticipated, and these bri- 
gades did not reach the ford till half-past nine. The 
stream, however, was then crossed and, at half-past 
ten, the battle began. Up to three o'clock in the after- 
noon the Federal troops, though raw recruits, had 
steadily driven back the enemy's left, and complete 
victory seemed almost within their grasp. At this crit- 
ical moment the army of General Johnston arrived 
from the Shenandoah valley to reinforce the hard- 
pressed Confederates. Had the battle begun oa the 

66 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 67 

extreme right, two or three hours earlier, according to 
McDowell's plan, the victory would have been secured 
long before Johnston came. But as it was, this rein- 
forcement of the enemy decided the day. The Federal 
army, made up of inexperienced militia, was thrown 
into confusion and gave way. It was now impossible 
to rally these weary, panic-stricken soldiers, although 
the flight and confusion were by no means as disgrace- 
ful as they were at that time represented to be. A 
large part of the army halted and reformed at Cen- 
terville. The Confederate general, Johnston, declared 
that its "apparent firmness checked our pursuit/' 

The defeat, however, was very disheartening to the 
people of the North. The air was full of criticisms, 
some of them bitter and foolish. The battle, it was 
said, had been unwisely planned; the army had been 
unskillfully led. Very many, now that the battle was 
over, thought that they could have fought it better. 
Every cause for the reverse, except the true one, was 
magnified. Rumors were rife that the disaster was due 
to the inebriety of the commanding general, and soon 
after he was court-martialed at Washington for drunk- 
enness. The military court sat for several days. A 
volume of circumstantial evidence was taken. Wit- 
nesses testified that they saw the accused in a state of 
inebriety, riding from one camp to another. His face, 
they affirmed, was as red as a toper's. He could not 
even hold up his head, but it drooped on his bosom, 
and, as his horse jogged along, it swayed first to the 
right and then to the left. Was proof of intoxication 
ever clearer? 

What co aid be said in rebuttal of such apparently 
conclusive testimony ? Why, just this. If he drank 
he must have gotten his intoxicating beverages of 



68 HITHEETO UNTOLD 

somebody, but no one could be found who ever sold him 
any liquor, nor could any witness testify that he ever 
saw him drink. How strange! Had he then been so 
secretive that he could not be detected in the practice 
of this vice? No, he was always open-minded and 
frank. The explanation of the apparent mystery, how- 
ever, was easy and was convincing to the court. 

The general had been for years in military service, 
first in Mexico, and subsequently on the plains, where 
he was engaged in warfare with the Indians. In all 
this extended service he had been compelled to ride 
much on horseback. When weary, he had learned to 
sleep in his saddle. Before the battle of Bull Run it 
became his duty to organize an army of volunteer mili- 
tia. It was an enormous task. But the nation was in 
haste; the impatient cry was, "On to Richmond." So 
he often passed the entire night without sleep, hard at 
work over his papers and maps in his tent. When on 
the following day duty called him to visit some en- 
campment ten or fiteen miles distant, getting his horse 
fairly started on the road, he seized the opportunity 
for a refreshing nap. It was hot weather in Virginia 
in June and July, and his skin always burned when ex- 
posed to the sun. His nose became red as a beet, but 
the scorching rays of a Southern sun had made it so, 
not Bourbon whiskey. The military court heard all 
the evidence pro and con, and acquitted him. There 
are usually at least two ways of explaining the same 
thing. Circumstantial evidence may seem to prove a 
case when it does not. 

In the summer of 1878, at an afternoon tea, in San 
Francisco, it was my privilege to meet General Mc- 
Dowell. There was then an uprising of Indians in 
Oregon, and it was his duty to suppress it. He was 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 69 

full of righteous indignation. He thought that the dis- 
turbance had been provoked by the inconsiderate ac- 
tion of the government. These Indians, a few months 
before, had been removed by force from the fertile 
lands which they had long occupied, and where they 
had buried their dead, to a reservation which was ut- 
terly barren; he said he doubted if it could be made 
to produce enough to sustain a single family; he 
thought a chipping-bird would die of starvation there. 
A few unarmed, famishing Indians had visited their 
old home that they might dig camas roots to keep them- 
selves from perishing, and a white settler, seeing one 
of them, shot him. He said : ! ' This white man thought 
that a starving Indian had no right to eat those roots, 
since he wanted them for his hogs. Now the Indians, 
stirred up by this cold-blooded murder, are on the war- 
path. I must subdue them; but it grieves me to be 
compelled to do it. If I had my way I would detrib- 
ilize all the Indians, give them land for farms and 
homes, and then meet out equal justice to both Indians 
and white men." 

These utterances greatly interested me; but while 
we talked, tea and coffee were served, and the general 
refused both. Wine was brought, but he would take 
none, and asked for a glass of water. Cigars were 
passed, but he would not smoke. I now said to him: 
"General, you surprise me. You belong to the army, 
yet have refused tea, coffee, wine and cigars. I thought 
officers of the army generally smoked." He replied: 
• ' An army-officer is just as good as anybody else ; I have 
never in my life tasted tea, or coffee, or any kind of in- 
toxicating liquor, or tobacco/ ' Eef erring to the fact 
that the wild ass eagerly drinks from the cold streams 
of the mountains, he said, "As to drink, my taste is 



70 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

that of the wild ass." He then gave me an account 
of his trial by court-martial for drunkenness, and said : 
' ' If you should read the evidence, you might think that 
I was guilty." 

This is a marvelous incident. A man who never so 
much as tasted any kind of intoxicating liquor in all 
his life, was court-martialed for drunkenness, and the 
circumstantial evidence seemed to establish his guilt 
quite conclusively. However important such evidence 
may be, we must be suspicious of any conclusion to 
which it may lead us, when there is no direct evidence 
to substantiate it. Suspicious circumstances may be 
explained in a variety of ways, and sound, practical 
morality requires us always to put the best construc- 
tion on the acts of our fellow men. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Flowers in Desert Places. 

In the winter of 1858-9, the Second Baptist church 
of St. Louis established a mission in a part of the city 
which, up to that time, had been almost wholly desti- 
tute of evangelical influences. The houses of this en- 
tire district were now visited by Christian workers, 
and a flourishing Sunday-school, with prayer-meetings 
and preaching services, was the result. Many who had 
long been strangers to religious meetings were gathered 
in, and not a few were converted and baptized. 

Around two of the children of this mission more than 
usual interest gathers. One of them was a little boy 
whose heart had been touched and transformed by the 
grace of God. His father was a drunkard, and his 
home was one of extreme poverty and wretchedness. 
The unpainted, weather-stained wooden house in which 
he lived, stood a few feet from a dusty road, in the 
western part of the city. In front of it was a tumble- 
down picket fence. The small gate before the door 
was off its hinges. Hats and cast-off clothing served 
here and there for window-panes. The interior of the 
house was in harmony with the exterior. In the room 
which served for washroom, kitchen and sitting-room 
there were a rickety cooking-stove, three or four dilapi- 
dated chairs, an old bureau, and in two small adjacent 
rooms two colored bedsteads with ticks of straw. 

The family consisted of the blear-eyed, trembling 

71 



72 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

drunkard, called husband and father, the wretched 
wife and mother, out of whose eyes hope seemed to 
have faded forever, and the little boy. Many Christian 
people had tried in vain to lead the father to perma- 
nent reform; but when at the mission the heart of his 
child had been created anew by the Spirit, a light kin- 
dled by God began in a wonderful way to shine in that 
dark and cheerless home. 

The little boy gave verbal expression to his new 
spiritual life by singing the sacred songs which he 
learned at Sunday-school. This was the voice of God 
to the dissolute father. He listened, his heart broke, 
and the tears, which he was unable to restrain, trickled 
down his bloated cheeks. Feeling now that he must 
have counsel, he sent for me. When I entered his deso- 
late home, he, sobbing, told me this touching story: 
"My little boy," he said, "came from the mission yes- 
terday so happy, while I was so miserable. He sat 
down on a stick of wood behind that old stove, and 
sang: 

" 'There is a happy land, 

Far, far away, 
Where saints in glory stand, 

Bright, bright as day!' 

"Scenes of happy, by-gone days came back to me; 
I saw how vile I was ; I could endure it no longer, and 
my heart broke. Now I want to take the temperance 
pledge." 

I told him that I had no pledge with me, but could 
write one, if he would bring me pen, ink and paper. 
He looked through an old cupboard, built into the wall 
of the room, but could find no paper, only a rusty old 
pen and a little half-dried ink in a dusty ink-bottle. 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 73 

"Well," I said, "have you a Bible?" "Yes," he re- 
plied, and brought it to me. "Now," said I, "I will 
write the pledge on the fly-leaf of your Bible, so that 
every day when you read the Scriptures, you can read 
your pledge. " So I wrote : "I solemnly promise in the 
presence of Almighty God and of these witnesses, that 
from this day henceforth, I will never use as a beverage 
any malt or spirituous liquors of any kind whatso- 
ever." He took the old pen and with trembling hand 
signed his name. Then he rose from his chair, turned 
towards his wife and said with deep emotion: "Oh, 
Annie! this is for you as well as for me! You have 
suffered so much from me!" Then throwing his arms 
around her neck, he kissed her and wept aloud. 

The little boy, artlessly singing his glad Sunday- 
school song, had broken the chain which bound his 
father to the intoxicating cup. So long as I knew him 
he remained true to his pledge. In the house where 
poverty had reigned, there w r as not only peace, but 
plenty. 

The other child of whom I write was a little girl. 
Her parents who were very poor, presented themselves 
at the mission house and asked for charity. It was gen- 
erously bestowed. But they came back week after 
week with the same tale of woe. This led to a more 
careful investigation. We then found that the whole 
family, with the exception of the little girl, were secret- 
ly drunkards. Most of the money which we had given 
them had been used in purchasing intoxicating drink. 
But there was one beautiful, fragrant flower in that 
moral desert, the little daughter. Her heart the Lord 
had opened to receive the gospel. By birth she be- 
longed to that depraved household, but was personally 
pure. As the pond-lily grows up amid the ooze and 



74 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

yet is not of it, so she grew up in a dissolute family, 
and yet was not of it. They were of the world, she was 
not of the world. They walked in darkness, she in the 
light. 

She at last was very sick ; yet while she lay on a tick 
of straw in a wretched hovel, the very peace of God 
filled her soul. By the bed stood an old lamp-stand. 
On it was a fresh bouquet of flowers, brought to the 
dying girl by the little children who had been her com- 
panions at the mission. It was a bright, beautiful Sun- 
day morning. The pale face of the dying child was 
turned towards the flowers. She said in a soft, cheerful 
voice to a Christian friend who stood by her: "Take 
away the flowers so that I can see the angels. Don't 
you hear them sing?" 

A moment passed and she had ceased to breathe. 
Did she not see the shining host, more beautiful than 
the flowers? Did she not catch the strains of their 
seraphic songs? Were not her last words in accord 
with Christ's who, speaking of the little ones who be- 
lieved in him, said, "Their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven ?" 

Such incidents make the true preacher feel as Dr. 
Parmelee felt, who for years was a Presbyterian mis- 
sionary in Northern New York. In a sermon before 
the Synod of Albany, he said: "Brethren, I have for 
fifty-one years preached the gospel of Christ, in the 
midst of some hardships and many comforts, and 
though I may truly say that I do not fear death, but 
look upon it with great calmness, yet if it should please 
God to renew my term of office, I would joyfully accept 
a commission to preach the gospel clear up to the day 
of judgment." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Special Providence. 

Many theologians now reject the distinction between 
general and special providence. All providence, say 
they, if providence at all, must be the personal over- 
sight of God. This is doubtless true, but there are times 
when the control of God is much more manifest to us 
than at others. All who receive the truth taught in the 
New Testament, rejoice in the glorious fact there re- 
vealed, that God clothes the grass of the field, paints 
the lily, guides the falling sparrow, and much more 
cares for man made in his own image. But, if our 
spiritual vision is clear, we see his hand not only in the 
external world, but also often most notably in the di- 
rection given to human thought, and the impulses im- 
parted to the human heart. 

Years ago, while pastor of a church, I carefully pre- 
pared a discourse, for the evening service, on the story 
of Ananias and Sapphira. Sunday afternoon the 
heavens were covered with clouds, the chilly east 
wind crept through the streets of the city, and 
as the day began to darken, a cold, drizzling 
rain came pattering down. An hour before serv- 
ice, I began, according to my custom, to go men- 
tally through my sermon, that I might be sure that 
every thought was fully within my intellectual grasp; 
but, to my dismay, I found it impossible to recall in 
any logical order, what with great labor I had wrought 

75 



76 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

out during the preceding week. Every attempt which 
I made ended in mental confusion and darkness. With 
consternation I looked forward to the moment, near at 
hand, when the church-bell should strike and summon 
the evening worshipers. "What shall I do, what can 
I do?" cried I in the solitude of my study. On the 
eve of service, and no sermon ! I fell on my knees and 
prayed in agony of spirit. My fear and agitation fled. 
Calm trust and ineffable peace pervaded my soul. Into 
my mind flashed this text: "For if there had been a 
law given which could have given life, verily righteous- 
ness should have been by the law." The subject, the 
proposition, the divisions of the discourse in a twink- 
ling were before my mental gaze. The church-bell 
pealed out its last musical call to service, and conscious 
that I had a message from God, I entered the pulpit 
with firm, undaunted step. 

Was this the manifest providence of God? Let us 
see. Full two miles from the church, on that cloudy, 
rainy, cheerless Sunday afternoon, there sat a busi- 
ness man alone in his house. The political paper, 
which he had been mechanically holding before his face 
had no interest for him, and at last it fell upon the 
floor. He looked out of his window on the dreary, de- 
serted street. The scene seemed to be consonant with 
the gloom and hopelessness of his soul. The evening 
was near. He stepped into the hall, put on his over- 
coat, took his umbrella, and walked out into the storm 
and the thickening darkness. The wind seemed to cool 
and soothe his agitated nerves. He went on without 
any purpose. There was no place to which he was 
intentionally going, it was only agreeable to saunter 
along one street after another in the drizzling rain. 
Just as the church-bell, which I had at first so much 
dreaded, rang out its last note, he was near by, and 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 77 

the thought came to him, he knew not why or how, 
that he would go into the church and hear what the 
preacher had to say. He did so. 

The next day a messenger boy delivered me a note. 
It was from a merchant whose place of business was a 
mile away. He wished to see me as soon as it was con- 
venient. Without delay I called upon him. He told 
me how, without any clear purpose, he had found his 
way the night before into my church. He said my 
sermon must have been made especially for him. Every 
word just fitted his case. By it he had been deeply 
convicted of sin. He wished me to guide him in this 
supreme crisis of his soul. An earnest struggle with 
the forces of evil, lasting several days, ensued, and 
then there was victory, light and peace. He had re- 
ceived from Christ that divine life which the law 
could not give. He has proved to be a faithful follower 
of Him who found him in bondage and gave him lib- 
erty. This was one of the fruits of the God-given ser- 
mon. 

But there was still another, no less remarkable. On 
that same stormy Sunday night, there sat in the con- 
gregation a gray-haired, well-dressed gentleman. He 
was a familiar figure. He was almost invariably pres- 
ent at the evening service. He had listened to thou- 
sands of sermons with apparent interest, but was still 
unsaved. On this occasion, however, when the con- 
gregation had left, he sent me word that he wished to 
see me at his home, which was near the church. When 
I entered his room, he said I must have made the ser- 
mon for him. He was in distress on account of his 
spiritual condition, but he now gave himself to Christ 
at the eleventh hour. That very week he was taken sick. 
He was soon dangerously ill. On the following Sun- 
day night he sent for me again. I found him greatly 



78 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

troubled in spirit. I asked him if he did not have the 
assurance that God had forgiven his sins. He said that 
he had, but, covering his face with his handkerchief, he 
cried aloud: "I am so sick that I can never make a 
public profession of my faith in baptism/' But the 
merciful Lord who had forgiven this aged sinner, 
calmed his agitated spirit, and filled his soul with peace. 
A few days afterward, sitting in his armchair, he died 
in faith and hope. How strange that he should have 
heard so many sermons, and have been saved by the 
last one to which he ever listened! 

"When these things had transpired, then it was made 
plain why on that stormy night, to that small audience, 
the Lord did not permit me to preach the sermon which 
I had so carefully prepared, on Ananias and Sapphira. 
The Lord doubtless leads every prayerful trusting min- 
ister in selecting his subjects and texts for sermons, 
but at times, as we have already suggested, his guidance 
is unusually manifest. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
Grace Versus Wine. 

In the winter of 1860-61 I devoted an hour to per- 
sonal religious conversation with those that desired it, 
immediately after the Sunday morning service, in order 
that any one awakened by the sermon, or by any other 
instrumentality, might receive such special direction 
as the soul burdened by sin so imperatively demands. 
One day a man over fifty years of age presented him- 
self as an inquirer. He had a diseased limb, and walked 
feebly with a cane. He said that he had been in the 
congregation for several years, but was still without 
God and without hope. Pungent conviction for sin 
now filled his soul with anguish. Agitated and trem- 
bling, he unfolded a portion of his personal history, 
said that he had sinned against the clearest light, and 
had struggled onward in his career of transgression in 
spite of the prayers and entreaties of Christian friends. 
He feared that there was no hope for him, because he 
had contracted a burning thirst for wine. 

He had charge of the third story of a wholesale drug 
store, where he directed a score of boys in the work of 
bottling medicines. As he was a trusty servant, the 
wine-room of the establishment was also put under his 
care, and the proprietor gave him liberty to drink as 
much as he desired of the oldest and richest products 
of the grape. In this liberty he found at last the 
most terrible bondage. As the spider winds his at- 

79 



80 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

tenuated thread again and again around the unsuspect- 
ing fly, till it buzzes helplessly in the silken toils, so 
the tempter, through the delicious taste of wine, before 
his victim was conscious of the fact, had bound him 
fast. He now knew that there was no power in his 
own arm to snap his bonds asunder, and as yet he saw 
no deliverer from without. He was on the giddy verge 
of destruction, and almost in despair of being saved 
from the irretrievable plunge into it. 

It was my glorious privilege to present to him One 
who is stronger than the strong man armed, and to 
attempt to inspire him with the hope that Christ could 
subdue the raging appetite for that which was already 
biting like a serpent and stinging like an adder. When 
these words of cheer had been spoken, which through 
the influence of the Spirit, seemed to lift the cloud, in 
a measure, from his soul, we prayed and parted. 

The next day T found his place of business. It was 
also his home. A room scantilv furnished, which 
looked out on Main Street, contained all his earthly 
possessions. He was a bachelor. A sister living in the 
city occasionally visited him, that she might administer 
to his wants. There was an air of comfort about his 
lonely abode, and an evidence that he loved the beauti- 
ful. Some engravings hung on the walls, and delicate 
flowers bloomed in the windows. But the wine-room, 
which had well-nigh become his destroyer, was only a 
few steps from his door. Both day and night his 
tempter crouched at his threshold. When wine was 
called for by buyers, he was compelled to draw it from 
the casks. His situation could scarcely have been more 
unfavorable. What direction ought I now to give 
him? Should I tell him to quit the drug-store and 
abondon his business? As the wiije was sold only* for 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 81 

medicinal and communion purposes, in vending it there 
was no infraction of moral law. And if he should seek 
some other place of business in St. Louis, where would 
he be freer from temptation to drink? In view of all 
these facts, I decided to leave the question of his place 
of business undisturbed. So the great question now 
was, Shall grace or wine have the victory? He had 
steadily maintained his purpose since he bowed in 
prayer the day before, and some faint rays of hope 
seemed to be irradiating the darkness of his soul. Day 
after day, with the eye of his tempter on him, he re- 
mained firm, and each day of victory brought him in- 
creasing light and strength, until he possessed that 
"peace of God which passes all understanding." 

His joy, however, once vanished, and I found him 
gloomy and sad. 

"What is the difficulty?" I asked. 

"0," said he, "I thought there was only one lion in 
the way (referring to his appetite for wine), but, as 
soon as that one was slain, a dozen more appeared/' 

But Jesus, who had slain the one, soon slew for him 
all the rest, and brought him out into still greater light 
and joy. 

Six months after his conversion he was baptized into 
Christ. He spent his entire Christian life in sight of 
his enemy, the wine-room; day after day he walked 
to and fro before its open door; day after day he dealt 
out the wine to customers, making the demonstration 
perfect, that in his case divine grace was mightier than 
the tyrant wine. He was always ready to talk about 
Jesus and his wonderful redemption. There was ever 
with him an abiding and positive conviction of personal 
sinfulness and weakness, and a constant, childlike trust 
in Christ, his righteousness and strength. Whenever 
we met in his room, and our words of greeting were 



82 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

over, he would say, "You will pray with me before 
you leave?" seeming to fear that our conversation 
might rob us of this communion with Jesus if he did 
not settle it beforehand that we were to pray together. 
If there are foretastes of heaven on earth, we had them 
in that upper room of the drug-store. As Jacob, wet 
with the dew, could rise from his bed of earth and 
pillow of stone and call the place Bethel, because God 
revealed Himself there; so that humble room made one 
more Bethel on earth, for God, the Spirit, dwelt there, 
and rendered the unadorned apartment more attractive 
to the Christian heart than the most gorgeous palace. 

A little more than five years after the subject of this 
sketch was converted he died. On his death-bed he 
had but one fear, and that was that he might be impa- 
tient under the manifold physical sufferings which put 
an end to his earthly life. But patience had in him its 
perfect work, and calmly and peacefully he entered the 
better land, where there is no sin and no suffering. 

Does not this simple story suggest some such ques- 
tions as these? Is not the gospel the mightiest and 
best antidote for intemperance? Does not the renewal 
of the heart, through grace, most speedily and certain- 
ly subdue an overmastering appetite for strong drink? 
While we sustain the temperance reformer, because he 
does some good, ought we not to rely chiefly on the 
transforming Spirit to save men from a drunkard's 
grave and a drunkard's hell? Do not most real refor- 
mations spring from transformations? When intem- 
perance shall finally be subdued will it not be through 
the gospel? When we spend our strength, that ought 
to be used in preaching Christ, in promoting reforms, 
do we not virtually deny the power of the gospel and, 
for the time being, turn our backs on that which alone 
can transform and save men? 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Shouting and Salvation. 

In the Civil War I met in a hospital at St. Louis a 
peculiar and specially instructive experience. A sol- 
dier who had contracted a violent cold was sent there 
for treatment. While his character was in no way dis- 
tinctively bad, he felt himself to be a great sinner, it 
was my joy to tell him of God's love, even for the 
worst of sinners, revealed to us in, Jesus Christ. He 
listened eagerly. It was the message that he needed. 
He trusted in Christ as his personal Redeemer, and 
felt that for Christ's sake God had forgiven his sins. 
When I left him he was full of peace and joy. 

The next day, being unable to visit the hospital, I 
sent instead a returned missionary, who was for a few 
days stopping at my house, bidding him to say, without 
fail, some helpful word to the new and joyful believer. 
Returning in the evening he reported him to be in great 
sorrow, the cause of which he could not discover. 
Wondering what could have befallen him, on the next 
day at the earliest hour I could command, I found my 
way to his bedside and, sure enough, he was in deepest 
gloom. He responded to my greeting with sighs and 
tears. I said to him, "Do tell me what is the matter?" 
On account of his severe cold he could not speak aloud. 
I brought my ear to his lips and heard the whispered 
words, "I can't shout." 

In a flash I understood his difficulty. Some years 

83 



84 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

before I met near his home in Michigan a band of 
Christians, who declared that if a professed believer 
did not shout for joy, he had no sufficient evidence that 
he was truly converted. My soldier friend, who, for a 
little while was so full of exultant gladness, called to 
mind this pernicious teaching, and by it, on account of 
his temporary inability to speak aloud, was plunged 
into despair. Anxious to lift him out of his distress, I 
asked, "Does the New Testament say that you can't 
be saved unless you shout ?" He whispered, "I can't 
read and don't know." I had not suspected that he 
was illiterate, not having before met a Union soldier 
that could not read and write. So now I instructed 
my sad friend more perfectly. While he listened the 
clouds broke, the light streamed into his soul and he 
was happy once more. Though voiceless, as I bade him 
good day, his face was radiant with joy. "Walking 
along the street towards my home, this strange, almost 
comical, incident suggested its important lesson; it 
does make a vast difference what a man believes even 
though he be absolutely sincere. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Enlightened by Sumter 's Fall. 

Near the center of the State of Missouri, before the 
Civil War, there lived a man in whose family was an 
only son. The plantation on which they resided was 
very large. In due time the son married and set up 
a household for himself. The plantation was then 
about equally divided between him and his father. The 
son's house was nearly two miles from the old home- 
stead. Both plantations were worked by slaves. On 
each there were between twenty and thirty black chat- 
tels. 

Fort Sumter, after having been for many hours 
bombarded, surrendered on April 14, 1861. The next 
morning the son rode on horseback over to his old 
home. His father came out to greet him, when the fol- 
lowing conversation took place. The son said, "Father, 
have you heard the news?" "Yes," he replied, "Fort 
Sumter has fallen." After a moment's silence the son 
asked, "What are you going to do now?" "Why, 
nothing," answered the father, "that I know of. What 
should I do?" His son replied, "I have made up my 
mind as to what I shall do. In my judgment, the bom- 
bardment and surrender of Fort Sumter means the 
emancipation of all the slaves in the United States, and 
I intend to free my slaves now, and I thought that you 
might join mo in this." The father, astounded and en- 
raged, cried out angrily : ' ' Are you crazy ? Have you 

85 



86 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

lost your senses ? Are you a fool ? ' ' and he poured 
forth his spleen so excitedly and copiously, that his son, 
thinking discretion to be the better part of valor, 
mounted his horse and rode rapidly back to his own 
house. 

He at once called his slaves together and told them 
all about what had taken place in South Carolina, and 
said to them: "All the slaves in the United States will 
soon be free, and I give you all your freedom now. 
But I must carry on this plantation, and if you will 
work for me, I will pay you well for your labor. ' ' They 
listened with great glee to what he told them, and all 
of them were glad to work for him, for the wages that 
he offered them. A few months later, as the war devel- 
oped, every slave ran away from his father's planta- 
tion, while all his hired servants were contentedly cul- 
tivating his broad, rich acres. 

Vinet says that "Some men are enlightened by hell. ,, 
This young man was certainly enlightened by war, and 
a great authority says that war is hell. Beauregard's 
belching guns at Charleston Harbor drove the mist 
from some minds, and let in the light. A little while 
after, this young slaveholder, whose mind had been 
illuminated by the fall of Sumter and who. with such 
rare sagacity, had freed his slaves, read in the Mis- 
souri Republican a sermon of mine on loyalty to good 
government, and coming to St. Louis, called upon me, 
and told me his captivating story. Together we talked 
and strengthened each other in loyalty and in God. 
He was a Sunday-school superintendent and I had the 
pleasure more than once of helping him secure books 
and papers for his school. What denomination of 
Christians he belonged to I never asked. It never oc- 
curred to me to ask. He belonged to the Lord, that was 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 87 

enough. God made him, and remade him by his Spirit. 
He was a manly man, pure grit. 

Later in the war, when bushwhacking in Missouri 
had become fearfully rife, when many of the best men 
in the State were being shot down from behind trees 
and stone walls by the roadside, he wrote me, warmly 
inviting me to pay him a visit and enjoy the hospitality 
of his home; yet advising me not to come just then, 
since, he grimly added, "Cold clergyman is at present 
in great demand hereabouts.' ' But true to his con- 
science, true to his fellow men, true to God, in spite of 
guerrillas and bushwhackers, he came out of the fiery 
turmoil of the war unscathed. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Fanning a Wounded Rebel. 

During the war a large number of soldiers were con- 
stantly stationed in and around St. Louis. Many came 
up from their encampments every Sabbath to the loyal 
churches of the city. If any service occurred without 
the presence of the "boys in blue," we at once surmised 
that some special danger was imminent which required 
them all to be at their posts on the Lord's Day. 

Early in 1864 a young lady, who devoted much of 
her time to works of benevolence in the hospitals and 
barracks, kindly invited a young man of the Seventh 
Regiment of Minnesota Volunteers to attend a church 
service with us. He gladly accepted her invitation, 
though he was not a Christian. 

His birthplace was New Hampshire, and Minnesota 
was his adopted State. In infancy he was left an 
orphan, but had received Puritan training at the hands 
of his grandparents. He possessed a gentle, generous 
nature and was most courteous in his manners. He 
seemed to a stranger quite destitute of the sturdy stuff 
required to withstand the seductive influences of the 
camp. A more thorough acquaintance, however, dissi- 
pated this illusion. His strict religious education had 
forearmed him. He was as pliant, yet as firmly rooted, 
as the elm. 

He appeared in our congregation just as I was be- 
ginning a course of sermons on the "Office and Work 

88 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 89 

of the Holy Spirit." As we endeavored thus to honor 
the Third Person of the Trinity, he began to work 
mightily in some hearts. He used the truth concerning 
himself to renew the souls of several that listened, and 
among them was this youthful soldier. When he gave 
himself to Jesus there was no ecstatic joy manifest, but 
peace flowed into his soul as silently and as sweetly as 
the morning light. And now as he had volunteered for 
Christ's army, he was duly mustered in, taking his oath 
in the sacrament of baptism that he would henceforth 
fight for Jesus and against the devil. His spiritual en- 
rollment having been completed, he was summoned to 
leave his city encampment and go forth to the toil- 
some march and the bloody battle; but he went now to 
do double service — to strike both for Christ and his 
country. Dangers thickened around him, but he was 
unmoved. He wrote to his friends: "Although I have 
enjoyed life and society hitherto, I had never known 
what true happiness was — such a fulness of joy and 
peace from the Holy Spirit pervades my soul. I thank 
you for your prayers on my behalf, and hope, if we 
meet no more here on earth, that I shall meet you all 
in heaven.' ' 

His regiment was ordered down the Mississippi in 
pursuit of Forrest. On the 14th of July a fierce battle 
was fought and Andrew C. Colby fell, with his face to 
the foe, both lungs having been pierced by a ball. 
When his wounds were dressed, the surgeon said that 
he could not live through the night. He took an af- 
fectionate leave of his comrades, assuring them that be 
was ready to die if it were God's will. 

Their wounded enemies were also tenderly cared for 
in the same hospital, and one of them lay beside young 
Colby. Great was the joy of his fellow officers when 



90 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

they found him the next morning not only alive, but 
grasping in his enfeebled hand a palm-leaf, with which 
he was fanning the wounded rebel, who had been placed 
by his side. How r clear and beautiful was this evidence 
of his regeneration! He had caught the spirit of his 
Lord, who prayed for his executioners, as they nailed 
Him to the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." 

His remaining history is sad. Our forces were com- 
pelled to retreat to Memphis and leave those most se- 
verely wounded in the hands of their foes. Those that 
out of pity and prudence our men refused to remove, 
trusting that their enemies would show like compassion, 
were heartlessly put on board the cars and carried to 
Mobile. The wounds of our forgiving hero, contrary 
to the expectation of the surgeon, had begun to heal, 
but the jolting cars caused them to bleed afresh. He 
died four days after he reached his destination. Now 
the New Hampshire boy and Minnesota soldier sleeps 
on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. A board, bearing 
his name, the name of his regiment, the number of his 
company, and designating his place of residence, marks 
his humble grave. His conflicts are past, and while he 
shares the triumphs of the redeemed, may we not learn 
from his short Christian life how to forgive and love? 



CHAPTER XXI. 
Suffering by the Minute. 

The sufferer was a young man, not more than thirty 
years old. He was quiet, thoughtful, and a genuine 
Christian. For several years he had honored his pro- 
fession of faith by a cheerful and constant devotion 
to religious duties. Since he found in the Scriptures 
food for his soul, he read them with delight. He 
prayed in secret, engaged in public worship, taught in 
the Sunday-school, gave ungrudgingly what little he 
had to give for benevolent purposes, strove to be gen- 
tle and charitable, and in this was at least fairly suc- 
cessful. But all this was done without noise and os- 
tentation, so that he attracted no special attention. 
His Christian life ran on so smoothly that those around 
him were quite unconscious of the deep impression for 
good that he was making upon them. It was like the 
placid stream winding through the meadows, scarcely 
observed, because noiseless, touching with its vivifying 
waters the hidden roots, causing them to send up into 
the sunlight blade and leaf, bud and blossom and fruit. 

This unassuming Christian was at last put to the se- 
verest test. He was attacked by acute rheumatism. 
It laid its grim grip on every joint of his body. Every 
movement of his hand or foot tortured him. The bed- 
clothes which warmed him, by their weight gave him 
intolerable pain. And now this quiet young man 
proved himself to be a Christian hero. He was unmar- 

91 



92 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

ried, and had no near relatives to care for him. He 
suffered in comparative loneliness. Trained nurses 
were at his bedside, but no loving hand of mother or 
wife soothed him in his agonies. To be burned at the 
stake requires far less heroism than to be racked with 
excruciating pain day and night, week in and week out. 
But this lonely sufferer trusted in Christ and was 
strengthened and cheered by his constant presence. 
The promise, "Lo, I am with you, alway," was gra- 
ciously fulfilled to him. He never once repined at his 
lot; he uttered no word of complaint. 

When I was visiting him one afternoon he said to me : 
"Early this morning, I thought that I could not pos- 
sibly endure these piercing pains another day. But 
soon I saw that I had taken up into my thought an en- 
tire day at once, that I was thinking of the whole of 
the physical agony that might be crowded into the next 
twenty-four hours. The suggestion came that I lived 
and suffered by the minute; that, the Lord being my 
helper, I could endure without murmuring my pres- 
ent pain for a minute; that minute having passed, 1 
thought that it was quite possible for me to endure the 
anguish of another; and then of another. And now I 
am triumphing each minute, and hereafter I propose 
to live by the minute, so long as life may last." 

In his heart was the peace of God; in his voice the 
accent of victory, although his nerves still quivered 
with pain. So for a few days, minute by minute, the 
dread battle went on. Sixty victories gladdened and 
glorified every hour. At last the hero having drunk 
the cup of suffering to its very dregs, in peace passed 
on into the better country, where there is no sickness 
nor pain. We were then sure that he knew by blessed 
experience that "our light affliction, which is for the 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 93 

moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an 
eternal weight of glory." 

Our brief story teaches two important lessons. The 
first is this : Our power to endure severe and protracted 
suffering depends largely on our mental attitude to- 
wards it. If we look at expected distress in the gross, 
we are apt to exaggerate it, so that before it touches 
us, we are overwhelmed by its imagined greatness. But, 
however great anticipated suffering may prove to be, we 
shall experience only a small part of it at any one mo- 
ment. When we divide the coming time into minutes, 
and in thought assign the suffering in limited quanti- 
ties to these very brief periods of duration, it loses 
much of its formidableness. By mentally dividing it 
we have largely gained the mastery over it. 

This is just as true of our labors as of our sufferings. 
Vast enterprises, like that of evangelizing our great 
cities, or that of giving the gospel to the whole human 
race, fraught with untold difficulties, confront us. If 
in imagination we mass these difficulties, we may lose 
heart and fail; but if we meet them as they come, one 
by one, minute by minute, we shall through God tri- 
umph over them all. 

The second lesson taught by our story is that God 
never grants us his grace and strength until we need 
them. Our patient sufferer found grace sufficient for 
each minute, and that is all God promises any of us. He 
does not give us grace to-day for to-morrow; nor grace 
this hour for the next; nor grace this minute for the 
moment to come; but always and only for the present 
minute. What a transformation it would make in the 
life of many a sufferer and many a laborer for Christ, 
if he could learn the art of living by the minute ! 



CHAPTER XXII. 
A Child Converted by Scripture. 

Years ago, while pastor in an Eastern city, I became 
deeply interested in the younger children of my con- 
gregation. That I might get nearer to them, and if 
possible kindle in their minds an intelligent interest in 
the saving truths of the gospel, I invited them to meet 
me every Saturday forenoon in my study. They were 
not told that it was their duty to accept my invitation, 
nor were they specially urged to do so. They were 
made to understand that it would greatly please me if 
they should come. On pleasant days, when everything 
without invited to innocent, joyful play, only eight or 
ten would come ; if, however, the sky were overcast, and 
the outer world had lost its brightness and charm, 
twenty or thirty would be present. 

I could not entertain this company of young and 
happy children with a service of song; my musical tal- 
ent was not great, and my musical training, if possible, 
was even less. Sometimes, to be sure, I sang to my 
own amazement, and undoubtedly to the amazement of 
others. Singing, therefore, except now and then a fa- 
miliar hymn, was not attempted. 

After singing, such as it was, a short prayer was 
offered. Then the Sunday-school lesson for the next 
day was read, and in clear, simple words, explained. 
From the start, the children, the youngest about five 
and the oldest not more than twelve, were greatly in- 

94 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 95 

terested. Every eye was upon me, and every ear at- 
tent, as the thought of the passage in hand was un- 
folded. In these expositions I did not resort to story- 
telling to dilute the truth and make it attractive, but 
presented it in popular language, and, when necessary, 
illustrated it by objects familiar to all. 

I now learned that even young children from Chris- 
tian households have about as clear notions of the great, 
fundamental truths of the gospel as adults. To be sure 
they do not know the fierce controversies which have 
raged around these truths down through the past cen- 
turies of Christianity, but the truths themselves they 
apprehend as fully and as justly as those more ad- 
vanced in years. A child understands a fixed star al- 
most as well as the gray-haired astronomer; and the 
central doctrines of the gospel, such as sin, regenera- 
tion, atonement, the God-man, are the fixed stars of 
the religious heavens. We know what has been said 
about them, but the maturest and wisest know these 
doctrines themselves but little if any better than chil- 
dren. 

My exposition of the Sunday-school lesson was fol- 
lowed by a short prayer and conference meeting. I 
then talked familiarly to the children, telling them 
what God in Christ had done for them; that he loved 
each one of them, and wanted to save them, and that 
he would save them now if they would only trust in 
him. These simple, saving truths, I often repeated in 
different forms, and illustrated in various ways. Then 
I invited them to speak or pray, but told them not to 
think that rhey must do so, still if they wanted to say 
a few word<; or offer a short prayer, it would give me 
great joy to hear them. A few at every meeting, and 
most of them at some of the meetings, would take part, 



96 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

and always quite intelligently. Several of them were 
converted and united with the church, and it was de- 
lightful to note by what they said in these meetings 
their manifest growth in knowledge and in grace. 

When the time of prayer and conference had passed, 
they wished me to read and explain to them some por- 
tion of Scripture selected by themselves. But since 
each one usually had chosen a chapter of the Bible for 
this purpose, it was impossible to satisfy them all. So 
we agreed that at a given signal the one that raised the 
hand first should have his or her chapter read. It is 
worthy of note that they selected for exposition the 
profoundest parts of the Bible. 

On one occasion a little girl, about nine years old, 
lifted up her hand first, and chose the fifteenth chap- 
ter of John. When I began to read, "I am the true 
vine," great interest was at once manifested by all the 
children. Their hearts were touched. Tears started 
in the eyes of some of them. The Spirit evidently had 
led the little girl in the selection of that chapter, and 
he was present to honor and bless his own word. She 
was converted then and there through the Scripture 
which had so deeply interested her. With a glad heart, 
she went home and told her father and mother the story 
of her conversion, and they being lovers of Christ, there 
was great joy in that house. 

The little girl had an uncle who was very fond of her. 
He, too, was a Christian and a Bible-class teacher. 
Each Sunday afternoon, after meeting his class, he was 
in the habit of calling at the home of his little niece. 
What real, but mysterious cord is there, which so binds 
kindred souls together, that the one impresses the other, 
even when they are in different and widely-separated 
places? Let the philosophers puzzle over that. Suffice 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 97 

it to say the uncle knew nothing of the change wrought 
in the heart of his niece, but on Saturday night he 
dreamed that she was converted, that he went as usual 
from his Bible-class to her home, that she, instead of 
the servant, opened the door and told him the good 
news. 

Sunday came. At the usual hour he taught his class. 
He then went, according to his custom to the home of 
his niece. He rang the bell. She, watching for his 
coming, opened the door and said, "Uncle Phil, come 
in." "0," he replied, "I had a dream about you last 
night." "What was it?" she asked. He said: "I 
dreamed that you were converted, and that when I 
came here after my Bible-class you opened the door, 
bade me come in, and then told me all about it. A part 
of my dream has come true, for you have opened the 
door and let me in." "Yes," she said, grasping her 
uncle by the hand, and leading him into the parlor, 
1 1 and the rest of it is true, too. ' ' Then she told him of 
the meeting on Saturday, of the reading of her chap- 
ter, and of her new life. Getting the Bible, she asked 
Uncle Phil to read the same Scripture. There she sat 
by his side, leaning on his arm, looking up into his face, 
while he, filled with joy at what had taken place in 
that young life, read the chapter, commenting on its 
preat truths as he read. When he had finished she 
asked him to read the next chapter, the sixteenth of 
John. He did so, and then, at her request, read the 
seventeenth. These profound Scriptures which have 
never been fully fathomed by the keenest intellects, 
through the Spirit had not only transformed the heart 
of this child, but were now delighting and nourishing 
this babe in Christ. O matchless Teacher, whose simple 
words present truths which the mightiest minds cannot 



98 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

wholly comprehend, yet in which a child finds light and 
salvation, hope and joy! 

In due time this little girl came with those who loved 
her to the assembled church, and told, in artless lan- 
guage, the suggestive story of the beginning of her new 
life. She was baptized into him who said: a I am the 
vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and 
I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.' ' She 
grew up to womanhood. The fruits of the Spirit ap- 
peared in her life and character. The years which 
have passed since that memorable meeting in her pas- 
tor's study have abundantly proved that she is a true 
branch of the true vine. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
Preaching Before Prayer. 

On a dark, chilly night in St. Louis a freemason, 
quite bereft of his senses by strong drink, staggered 
and fell into a gutter at the side of the street, where in 
the morning he was found dead. By his worse than 
beastly conduct, I was told, that he had forfeited his 
standing in his order and all claims upon its benevo- 
lence; but as he had been quite wilely known as a Ma- 
son, and had neither family nor more distant relatives 
to care for him, his Masonic brethren decided to give 
him at least decent burial. They consigned his body to 
an undertaker who prepared it for the grave. 

With two or three carriages and a hearse they came 
to convey the corpse of their dishonored brother to the 
cemetery, when one of them suggested that it would be 
a little more becoming if they should invite some 
clergyman just to offer a short prayer. To this all 
readily assented; and as I was the nearest Christian 
pastor, they hurriedly sent a messenger to me asking 
for this brief service. I at once responded to this sud- 
den call, and a few minutes after at the undertaker's 
I stood in the midst of a company of men that looked 
as though they had seldom heard the gospel and were 
in perishing need of it. In a moment I decided to 
seize the opportunity of preaching to them the truth 
as it is revealed by and in Jesus Christ. 

As I began to read some appropriate passages from 

99 



100 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

the Bible, they were at first evidently bored and im- 
patient, but their mien soon changed and they gave me 
not only respectful but earnest attention. At the close 
of the reading, I preached to that unusual and inter- 
esting audience for twenty minutes on how we can 
always be prepared both for life and death, and that 
when we are prepared to live as we ought, we are in 
constant readiness to die. As I talked I felt a sympa- 
thetic response to my words. Preaching over, the short 
prayer for which they asked followed, and then they 
bore away to its last resting place the body of their 
fallen brother. 

It has sometimes been said that preaching at funerals 
is worse than vain, because the minds of those partici- 
pating in the funeral ceremonies are so preoccupied with 
the thought of death as to preclude all effective consid- 
eration of the truths pertaining to salvation. But it 
was not so in this case. When three years later I was 
about to leave St. Louis for another field of labor, a 
gentleman called upon me who said : "I cannot let you 
go without telling you how much you have done for 
me," While I was wondering what I could have done 
for the stranger, he spoke of my preaching at the under- 
taker's and said that he heard me there; that he had 
not for years before heard the gospel proclaimed; that 
he was then a gambler, a hard drinker and in every 
respect his moral condition was desperate; but as he 
listened to me he was deeply convicted of sin and felt 
his utter condemnation before God. He said that he 
had at that time only one Christian acquaintance in the 
city, and that was an elderly woman belonging to the 
First Presbyterian church; that on his return from the 
cemetery, he at once went to her for counsel, and was 
by her instructed more perfectly in the gospel. He 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 101 

then quit his old life, was created anew in Christ Jesus, 
and had been a member of the church for more than 
two years. 

Such an incident incites all who are called of God to 
preach the Gospel to proclaim it whenever and wher- 
ever they get the chance so to do, from the pulpit, in 
the street, in the market, in undertaker's establish- 
ments — to "sow beside all waters.'' "In the morning 
sow thy seed and in the evening withhold not thine 
hand: for thou knowest not which shall prosper, 
whether this or that, or whether they both shall be 
alike good." 



CHAPTER XXTV. 
Lilies Among Thorns. 

In a city of New England lived a drunkard and his 
family. His small wooden house was unpainted and 
fast going to decay. The little furniture which it con- 
tained was worn, faded and marred. His wife and 
three children were poorly fed and scantily clothed. 
Still, though often in his cups, he was a quiet man of 
very few words. When he was sober no one could 
doubt that he truly loved the wife of his youth and 
the children that had come to gladden their hearts and 
home, but the demon of drink so tyrannized him that 
to gratify his insatiable appetite he left them to suffer 
untold hardships. It is the same old story of drunken- 
ness and its sad consequences, repeated millions of 
times in the history of our race. 

His wife was a genuine Christian and bore her pro- 
longed and bitter trials without complaint. She was 
always laboring and praying for the reformation and 
salvation of her husband and never seemed to lose heart 
or hope. She washed and scrubbed to keep the wolf 
from the door, to put bread into the mouths of her 
hungry children and clothing upon their backs. Her 
fortitude was both pathetic and heroic. This, alas! 
was not peculiar to her, there are multitudes of such 
brave, patient sufferers, who, though unknown to fame, 
are the very chief of heroines. 

But in the providence of God there came to her a 

102 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 103 

sympathizer and helper. The divine interposition on 
her behalf was so strange and marked that no thought- 
ful onlooker could reasonably doubt it. Many years 
before in England, a beautiful and attractive girl, be- 
longing to the nobility, fell in love with a young man 
beneath her in social rank. She wished and determined 
if possible to marry him. She frankly declared her pas- 
sion to her family and urgently sought their consent 
to the longed-for alliance. Resolutely and with much 
bitterness they set themselves against it, not that they 
had aught against her lover, but to marry him would 
involve the loss of social caste. She was ready to make 
the sacrifice and persistently pressed her suit; they 
scornfully opposed her. But their hostile attitude in- 
stead of quenching inflamed her already ardent love. 
She married her lover against their will and was disin- 
herited. Never again was she received under her fath- 
er's roof, never again was she even recognized by any of 
her family. But for many years she lived a happy and 
useful life. To be sure, luxury such as she abandoned 
in order to marry was not hers, but she had a compe- 
tence and that with love filled her heart with content- 
ment. She was, however, called to pass through great 
sorrow; the children that for a time filled her home 
with sunshine died; and her heart would have been ut- 
terly desolate had she not been a true Christian; but 
abiding in Christ, in spite of her bereavement, her soul 
was filled with the peace of God. 

At last, her husband for whose love she abandoned 
her high social position died also. She was now left 
alone, childless, husbandless. However, even then she 
had no regrets for the marriage which she contracted. 
"While her husband was not blessed with wealth, he 
had always been affectionate, manly, noble; and, at his 



104 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

death, he left her a little property which she turned 
into money and wisely invested. Still, on the interest 
of this investment she could live only by the most rigid 
economy. She cast about as to what it was best for her 
to do. All that remained of her own household was a 
few graves. At the home of her girlhood no door, no 
heart opened to receive her. All sins except those 
against caste may be forgiven. So she turned her back 
on her loved England, and in utter loneliness found 
her way to New England. 

Casting about for some place in which she could live, 
she drifted to the door of the shabby cottage of a 
drunkard. Just why she came to that spot rather than 
elsewhere, she could not tell. The drunkard's wife 
bade her come in. Sympathy between these two af- 
flicted souls spontaneously sprang up. The wanderer 
wanted a home, the mistress of that forlorn cottage 
wanted a sympathetic friend and adviser. The stran- 
ger told how small her income was, but to that drunk- 
ard's w T ife it seemed large. A verbal contract was soon 
made, with the hearty consent of the husband, that the 
newcomer should permanently occupy the room which 
up to that time had been kept for guests, and now 
there were six instead of five in that house of poverty. 

The lonely wanderer who had been so mysteriously 
led in a strange city to that humble home was already 
an old woman and feeble in body. She could do but 
little with her hands. Many days she was compelled 
through increasing weakness to lie upon her lounge ; 
but she brought into that dilapidated cottage an air of 
refinement that it had not before known. She, clean 
and tidy in dress, did much to bring order out of con- 
fusion and so to arrange the little that the cottage con- 
tained as to make it more homelike and attractive. And 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 105 

above all her Christian character was of a high order. 
She had been schooled in affliction, so that however 
disheartening the circumstances in which she was 
placed her soul abode in unruffled serenity. She was a 
patient, uncomplaining sufferer in a household of suf- 
ferers. 

Whenever I visited her I saw that she dwelt on spir- 
itual heights that I had never reached, and felt a 
mighty uplift toward a higher and diviner life. She 
fully believed that in the household of which she was 
now a part the Lord had given her a special work to 
do, to labor and pray for the salvation of the husband 
and father. She never for a moment doubted that he 
would be converted and saved. Her unwavering faith 
greatly cheered and strengthened the struggling wife 
and mother, while it was also profoundly impressing 
and influencing the wayward husband. But she was 
not permitted to see in this life the triumph of her 
faith. She steadily grew more feeble. It was evident 
to all that the time of her departure was near. But as 
bodily strength waned her spirit took on new vigor. 
With joy she talked of going to be with Christ. Just 
before she breathed her last she seemed to be in glory. In 
a drunkard's rickety cottage heaven and earth met, as 
Christ came to receive his own unto himself, that where 
he is she might also be 

But her work had been effective. The heart of the 
inebriated husband and father had been reached. He 
began to turn away from his cups. Occasionally he was 
seen in church, but at first only in some back seat of 
the gallery, as though in shame for his past life he 
wished to hide himself from the eyes of even his best 
friends. At last through Christ in whom he had come 
to trust he gained the victory over himself and his 



106 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

tyrannical appetite and confessed his faith "in the 
sight of many witnesses.' ' The cottage in which the 
wife and mother and the suffering sojourner had 
breathed into God's ear and God's heart so many 
prayers for his conversion was now made vocal by his 
praise to the Redeemer — praise that came forth from 
his renewed heart, and was uttered by his cleansed lips. 
So the thorn became a lily, too. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
On Granite 

About eighty-five years ago, more or less, in the 
backwoods of Kentucky, a young man was teaching 
school in a log schoolhouse. In the eyes of the people 
of that region he was something of a prodigy, since he 
taught not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but 
also English grammar. This gave him such promi- 
nence, that pupils came from the surrounding districts 
to receive his instruction. 

He belonged to a family of poor whites. His father 
was not above the average of the neighborhood, but his 
mother in native ability and character was superior to 
her surroundings. If her lot had been cast among the 
educated and refined, she would have adorned her sta- 
tion. She was a devoted Christian and a Baptist. She 
was blessed with sons who inherited her talent and 
who, by her godly life, were deeply impressed with the 
truth of the gospel. 

Her son William, when his school had closed, be- 
gan to think of his life-work. Seeing that the most dis- 
tinguished men of his state were in the legal profession, 
he determined to read law. He obtained a copy of 
Blackstone and began his study. He worked in the 
field during the day, and read his law-book at night. 
He was too poor to purchase either an oil lamp or a 
tallow candle, and read by the light of flaming pine- 
knots, which blazed in the great open fireplace, at the 

107 



108 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

end of the loghouse. He made commendable progress 
in the knowledge of law, and, after a few months of 
study was examined by the court and admitted to prac- 
tice. He was the admiration of all the poor whites of 
his neighborhood, first a schoolmaster and then a law- 
yer, and both in so short a time ! 

Young McPherson now settled at Helena, Arkansas, 
and began th6 practice of law. This river-town offered 
but little to meet the social needs of an active, enter- 
prising mind, and he was led by his associates to play 
cards for amusement, just pleasantly to while away the 
dull hours of the evening. Soon a passion for such 
games awoke within him. His skill in manipulating 
cards increased. He became a formidable antagonist, 
and soon began to play for money. By degrees he was 
drawn into the society of those gentlemanly gamblers 
who, at that time, infested the steamers of the Mis- 
sissippi, and swarmed in all the towns along its banks. 
With them he played, he won, he lost. The profes- 
sionals drew him on. He was no match for such play- 
ers. He lost all that he had, which was not much, and 
found himself twenty thousand dollars in debt to them. 

He went northward to St. Louis, a sadder, but a 
wiser man. Gambling he quit forever. The example 
and instruction of his godly mother came back to his 
mind with fresh power. He sought out the Baptist 
church, where, at that time, preached Dr. Isaac Taylor 
Hinton, of blessed memory. He had never before felt 
from the pulpit the touch of so strong an intellect. He 
was interested, profoundly impressed, converted, saved. 
He afterwards became a mighty man among the Bap- 
tists of St. Louis and Missouri, and was well known in 
national Baptist councils, both North and South. 

After his conversion and baptism, he was confronted 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 109 

with a question of conscience. Ought he to pay his 
$20,000 debt to the gamblers? He carried the case to a 
deacon whom he highly esteemed, and was told that as 
gambling was immoral and unlawful, a man was under 
no moral obligation to pay such a debt. Still the young 
convert was in doubt, and he decided to follow the 
doubt and pay the debt. He said that a gambler 
would regard it as a debt of honor, and that a Chris- 
tian ought at least to be as honorable as a gambler. Ho 
did not, however, have the money to pay so large a 
debt, and a long time must elapse before he could earn 
it by his law-practice. So he purchased a corner lot 
at Fourth and Olive streets, where he put up the first 
office building of St. Louis with a marble front. Out 
of this enterprise he made $20,000 or more, the first 
large sum of money that ever came into his possession. 
He did not, however, hoard it, but sought out his cred- 
itors among the gamblers, and paid to the last cent his 
debt of honor. 

Nor must I fail to note, that from the day of his con- 
version card-playing was to him a horror. He had a 
stalwart frame, his will was iron, yet I saw him, when, 
at an evening party, he caught sight of a company 
playing a game of whist, turn pale and tremble like a 
poplar leaf. He said to me : "I know nothing of the 
excitement of intoxicating liquor, but I know all about 
the excitement of cards, and since my conversion I can- 
not even see them without a shudder.' ' 

He was at last seized with that insidious, fatal 
malady, Bright's disease. A council of physicians de- 
clared his case hopeless. But the very next day, to the 
consternation of his friends, he chartered a car and 
went to Denver. For a few days he grew better, and 
walked the streets. It seemed for a time that his un- 



110 HITHEETO UNTOLD 

bending will would conquer, but the tide of returning 
vigor soon began to ebb. He felt it, and, without a 
murmur, returned to his home to die. 

After weeks of suffering his body became swollen and 
distorted, his intellect clouded, and he sank into insen- 
sibility, which continued many days. While he was ir 
this condition, on a Friday evening, I reached St. 
Louis. On the following morning he awoke from his 
long unconscious stupor. Some one told him that his 
former pastor was in the city. To the amazement of 
his friends, he said that he should attend church the 
next day. They tenderly arid firmly remonstrated, but 
that iron will would not yield. His wife urged, "Yoa 
w T ill die in church.' ' His calm reply was. "I might die 
in a worse place.' ' 

Sunday morning the heavens were bright, and his 
intellect was still unclouded. By his direction, he was 
placed in an armchair and lifted into a covered 
wagon, in which he was driven two miles to church. 
Brethren, with their hearts swelling up into their 
throats, carried him in his armchair gently into the 
sanctuary where he had so long worshiped, and down 
the middle aisle, to the space just in front of the pul- 
pit. The house was thronged, and at the sight of their 
sick and dying friend the heads of the congregation 
bowed as the ripened grain bends before the wind, and 
tears trickled freely down many a cheek. He at once 
beckoned me to his side. He wished simply to welcome 
me back to my old pulpit. After a short sermon, the 
pastor, Dr. Burlingham, administered the Lord's Sup- 
per. Our brother, conscious that he was so soon to leave 
this world, and looking forward to that into which he^ 
was so soon to enter, for the last time partook of the 
sacred elements with those whom he so tenderly loved, 



HITHEETO UNTOLD 111 

After the last hymn had been sung, at his own re- 
quest, two of his brethren held him up so that he 
might stand and greet one by one the older mem- 
bers of the church. No one ever looked upon a 
scene more touching than that. It was an anticipation 
of the blessed fellowship of God's people in the better 
country. Loving hands now lifted him again into his 
covered wagon, tearful adieus were said, and he was 
borne back to his home. He was not hurt by what he 
had so bravely done, but greatly refreshed. After a 
sweet, untroubled sleep during the night, he awoke 
again with his mind bright as the cloudless day. 

In company with his pastor, I visited him about ten 
o'clock. As he received us, his face lighted up with joy. 
He spoke of the service of the preceding day; said it 
sounded like old times to hear me preach; asked con- 
cerning certain business men of the East; and then 
said that he had not, for many weeks, cherished any 
hope of recovery, but was content. "But," said I, "do 
you now consciously trust in Jesus Christ as your Sa- 
viour?" He replied: "You know that I am not a very 
perfect Christian. There is no lustre in me; but I feel 
that I stand on granite." 

His last great business enterprise was the construc- 
tion of the railroad bridge across the Mississippi, at St. 
Louis. He had seen those massive granite blocks laid, 
which form its piers, and they very naturally furnished 
him the strong metaphor by which he set forth the 
fact that Christ, the everlasting rock, was beneath his 
feet. 

He now said: "My strength is about gone. Let the 
old pastor pray, and we will say good-bye." We 
poured out our hearts to God, and wishing each other 
the richest blessings, we parted. An hour later our 



112 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

brother sank again into insensibility, from which, in 
this world, he never woke. A few days afterwards he 
breathed his last. It seems to me that he did not, like 
Bunyan's pilgrims, go through the river of death, but 
over it on granite. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
. Four Drunkards. 

The young men of an influential church, in a great 
city, went out Sunday evenings two by two to invite 
strangers into their house of worship. They did this 
work without respect of persons, ^rnong those who re- 
sponded to their solicitations were several drunkards, 
some of whom professed conversion. After carefully 
scrutinizing their experiences, the church, not without 
some hesitancy, received them into its fellowship. I 
wish briefly to state the subsequent career of four of 
them, and will begin with the one whose faith, if he 
ever had any, was utterly overborne by his inveterate 
appetite for strong drink. 

He was a Canadian Scotchman, nearly six feet tall, 
strong, sturdy, athletic. His hair was brown with just 
a suggestion of sandiness. His eyes were a reddish ha- 
zel. He was a man of ability and above the average in 
force. For some years he had been a successful mer- 
chant in Montreal, but his prosperity had been blight- 
ed by his drinking vice. Resolving to conquer his re- 
morseless foe, he removed to Brooklyn, and took the 
responsible position of head bookkeeper in a large mer- 
cantile house in New York. Still he drank, and espe- 
cially on Sundays, when it would not directly interfere 
with his duties as bookkeeper. One Sunday evening, 
when half seas over, he was urged to enter the house 
of worship above referred to, and hear the gospel. He 

113 



114 HITHEKTO UNTOLD 

did so, and was so deeply impressed that he ostensibly 
repented of his sins and soon after became a member 
of the church. 

For some time he was a sober man. In his new life, 
his wife and children were made happy. He regularly 
attended the services of the church, and often took part 
in the prayer-meetings. But secretly he again began 
to drink. His telltale face was a glowing witness to his 
clandestine sin. He, however, for a time, resolutely 
kept up outward appearances. But at last his spells of 
drinking so interfered with his bookkeeping that the 
house which he served discharged him. The care of his 
family now fell upon his proud, plucky wife, and she 
proved to be equal to the emergency. 

But when the husband and father was in his cups 
he was brutal and cruel. "Wife and children often hid 
themselves from his fierce, unnatural wrath. The mu- 
nicipal law permitted the wife to make complaint 
against him to the judge of the court, who had the au- 
thority to send incorrigible inebriates to an institution 
not far away, that was both penal and reformatory; 
but though urged to enter her complaint in the court, 
she shrank with a shudder from the publicity and dis- 
grace of it. But personal peril soon compelled her to 
act. In a drunken frenzy her husband, seizing the 
carving knife, raised it to stab her. She fled to the 
door of the dining-room, and there stood facing him in 
an attitude of defence. With all his great strength he 
struck at her. She deftly dodged the blow, and the 
point of the knife sank an inch deep into the pine door 
where she had stood a moment before. He now, half 
conscious of his dastardly deed, was alarmed and, in 
order to forget it, drank till he was dead drunk. The 
wife, realizing her hairbreadth escape from death, went 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 115 

at once to the court and entered her complaint. The 
judge sentenced her husband to confinement in the 
penal reformatory institution for six months. 

When the officers came to execute the sentence of 
the court, they found the man whom they were to arrest 
utterly insensible. They lifted him into the prison van, 
as if he w y ere an inert lump of clay. The prison au- 
thorities received him while he was still in unconscious 
stupor. On awaking the next morning, he asked where 
he was. His keepers narrated to him all the facts that 
pertained to his case. He then asked the privilege of 
keeping the books of the institution. His request was 
denied. He was taken out into the yard, shown a huge 
heap of earth, and was ordered to wheel it in a wheel- 
barrow several rods, and fill up a hollow and make the 
grounds level. No help for it, he began his appointed 
task, which occupied him for several weeks. When it 
was done, he became the bookkeeper of the institution. 
After spending three months in durance vile, the au- 
thorities, in view of his good behavior, paroled him. 
The whiskey thoroughly out of him, he looked like a 
new man. He seen disappeared and I can trace him 
no further. 

Noting the good etfect of prison discipline in this 
case, the question arose in my mind, why should not 
drunkenness be regarded and punished as a crime? By 
any just and adequate definition of crime it must be 
placed in that category. Crime is a deliberate act by 
which one injures himself or others, or both himself 
and others. Now the drunkard does unspeakable in- 
jury to himself, to his family, to society and to the 
State. If on this ground we punish a thief, a forger, 
an embezzler, an adulterer, why not an habitual drunk- 
ard? Instead, however, we punish the one and pity the 



116 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

other. He is indeed an object of pity, but so is any 
criminal. Why should we not have in all the states 
some penal, but reformatory institution, midway be- 
tween the common jail and the penitentiary, to which 
confirmed drunkards shall be sent, where, denied all 
intoxicating drink, they shall be put to useful labor for 
which they shall be fairly paid, a part of their wages 
used for their own support, and the remainder sent to 
their suffering families; where they shall also have 
some time for reading, and shall be to some extent in- 
structed in history, science and religion ; where hand 
and head and heart shall be disciplined for a better 
life when their prison days are over? 

While such an institution would secure, in some just 
measure, the ends of justice and help pecuniarily 
drunkards ' households, would it not also greatly aid 
temperance reform? If all confirmed inebriates knew 
that the State regarded their vice as a crime to be as 
certainly punished as theft or forgery, hosts of them 
would speedily discover»that they had power to control 
their appetites for liquor and, on prudential grounds, 
would hasten to exercise it. But whether or not this 
would be the result we should not pity one criminal 
and condone his crime, while we withhold our pity 
from others and mete out to them unrelenting justice ; 
but rather, pity all, and, seeking the best interests of 
society and the State, impartially punish all. 

The second of our group of drunkards was an Ameri- 
can by birth and education. He w T as about forty years 
old when, persuaded to attend the Sunday evening 
sendees at the church, in the judgment of charity, he 
was converted. He had brown hair, blue eyes, and was 
about five feet nine inches in height. He was erect in 
carriage, lithe in body and limb, and when sober had, 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 117 

in all his movements, the bearing of a gentleman. He 
had a wife and a beautiful daughter, both devoted 
Christians. Their characters had been developed amid 
sharp and manifold trials, which had come upon them 
through the drunkenness of the husband and father. 

For a year or more after his professed conversion, 
his home was bright and happy. But at last he suc- 
cumbed to his old foe and staggered into his house 
drunk. Sunshine gave place to gloom and terror. 
When intoxicated he was brutal. Then those whom he 
loved and who loved him feared violence. Once, at an 
early hour in the morning, I was called to defend them 
against their professed and sworn protector. At my 
coming his frenzied wrath fled. He seemed to be un- 
speakably ashamed. He humbly confessed his sin, 
apologized for his brutality, and solemnly promised 
that he would never drink again. Two hours after he 
was in a saloon drinking more deeply than ever. Did 
he mean to be perfidious? I am sure he did not. He 
honestly made his promise, but was too weak in pur- 
pose and will to keep it. And for a quarter of a cen- 
tury in the life of this erring brother periods of drunk- 
enness and sobriety alternated. During all that time 
the church, with almost incredible patience, was put- 
ting forth unfaltering effort to save him. 

Some years after my pastorate of the church closed, 
I chanced to be the leader of its weekly prayer-meeting, 
and was surprised to meet the brother, who, in the 
past, had been so often overcome by his appetite for 
strong drink. He was among the first to speak. He 
said: "I am glad to see once more my old pastor. He 
worked hard to save me, but he went away, I fear, 
thinking he had failed. But he had not. I have at 
last overcome my old habit and am now happy in the 
service of the Lord." 



118 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

Those were cheering words. But, alas, a few months 
later he was again in the gutter and his brethren and 
wife and daughter were once more striving to lead him 
to sanity and sobriety. At last death came, and those 
nearest to him by blood, who had suffered so long and 
so bitterly from his conduct, believed him to be truly 
penitent. Was he a child of God, battling with temp- 
tation that none living could enter into and appreciate ? 
Him who discerns the deepest springs of all human 
Hoping against hope, we leave him in the hands of 
conduct and whose judgment is unerringly righteous. 

The third drunkard whose character I wish espe- 
cially to note, belonged to the emotional order. He was 
a tall man with a loose-jointed body. The sound of his 
own voice seemed to excite him and move him to tears. 
Before his conversion he was a wild, reckless drinker. 
He knew what it was to fall down dead drunk in the 
slush and mud of the street. When he came into the 
kingdom of God the natural traits of his character, of 
course, remained, though in a measure restrained and 
modified. Still, borne hither and thither by the tides 
of his feelings, glory and gloom swiftly alternated in 
his experience. Today, with the triumph of a victor, 
he trod the gilded mountain-tops, — tomorrow, he was 
wrestling with spiritual foes in the dark and stormy 
valleys which the sun never illuminated. When thus 
cast down his old appetite returned with terrific power. 

He was a clerk in a retail shoe store. Not able to pay 
car fare, each day he walked a long distance to his 
place of business. On his way thither he was com- 
pelled to pass by some saloons. At times, when 
abreast of one of these drinking places, his desire for 
liquor became so strong that he lost control of himself. 
He could no longer move. His feet seemed riveted to 



Hitherto untold 119 

the sidewalk. He found, however, that there were 
three things which he still could do. He could shut his 
eyes, wiggle his big toes, and pray. Resolutely doing 
these three things, his power of will was soon restored, 
and he walked on conscious of one more victory over 
his appetite. This fierce intermittent struggle contin- 
ued for years. Battle and victory, agonizing and tri- 
umph, darkness *<nd sunshine, swiftly succeeded each 
other till the goal was reached, and this Christian war- 
rior could say: "I have fought the good fight, I have 
finished the coutse, I have kept the faith." 

In sharp contrast with the foregoing stands the case 
of the fourth drunkard. He was by birth an English- 
man, in stature medium, in body stocky and sturdy, 
with square shoulders and a short, thick neck. While a 
man of generous impulses, he was quite the opposite 
of the emotional. His feelings did not manifest them- 
selves in jets, but flowed on day by day, silent and un- 
ruffled. It seemed strange that a man so constituted 
should ever have become a drunkard. But when the 
gospel found him, he was a sot. His conversion was a 
marvel. His old life was at once completely cut off as 
with a knife. "Old things,' ' wholly "passed away." 
He was a "new creation" in Christ Jesus. 

In accordance with his natural temperament, his 
new life was quiet, steady, undemonstrative. He was 
loath even to allude to his old life; it was abhorrent to 
him and he wished to forget it. However, in confidence 
he said to me: "Since my conversion, I have never 
had any conscious appetite for strong drink." This 
cautious statement was a fair index to his character. 
He did not say he had no appetite for liquor, but that 
he had no "conscious appetite" for it, as though he 
thought it possible that it might still exist in the realm 



120 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

of sub-consciousness. But it never again asserted itself. 

This redeemed child of God was. a few years after 
his conversion, called to die. The deep and silent stream 
of his new life flowed on unvexed into eternity. We 
who looked on, profoundly impressed by his peaceful 
departure, could but magnify the wonderful grace of 
God that saved him from the love and power of sin 
and made him a complete victor over a tyrannical ap- 
petite for intoxicating drink. 

In considering the lives of these drunkards, we first 
call attention to the fact, that an inordinate craving for 
intoxicating beverages is not simply a physical dis- 
order, produced by the action of alcohol upon the ner- 
vous tissues of the body, but it has its seat conjointly in 
both body and mind. In fact, it is chiefly entrenched 
in the mind, apart from which there can be no sensa- 
tion. Though the body be in perfect health, every 
organ intact, if the mind has gone out of it there is no 
feeling. If you bathe it, there is no agreeable sensa- 
tion; if you cut it, there is no pain; if you burn it, 
there is no smart; if you pour upon the tongue the 
most delicious drink, there is no taste. Now, one drinks 
intoxicating liquor that he may experience the pleasur- 
able sensation that is engendered; but since such sensa- 
tion cannot exist apart from mind, the mind is mani- 
festly the dominant factor in drunkenness. It is the 
mind that calls up the pleasurable exhilaration of 
drink and urges to it again To be sure, the body, in- 
flamed by alcohol, does, in some mysterious way, be- 
yond the reach of human insight, stimulate the memory 
and imagination, but these are intellectual powers. 

That the mind is predominant in the drinking habit 
is also clear, from the effects which follow intoxication. 
While the body is inflamed, diseased, and consumed by 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 121 

drink, the mind is still more terribly scourged by it. 
Drink benumbs the conscience, leads the way to many 
gross and debasing sins, makes the drunkard insensi- 
ble both to public opinion and to the law and will of 
God; and the culmination of his manifold woes is in 
the domain of his soul. In his delirium he is chased 
and clutched by fiends, entwined and hissed at by 
slimy snakes. An inebriate for whose reformation I 
labored, sitting in my drawing-room by an open fire, 
every moment or two, would pick the serpents from his 
arms and neck and throw them on the burning coals. 
While it was a grotesque hallucination, to him it was 
an awful reality. Upon the soul, where the habit of 
drink is most deeply and firmly entrenched, there 
finally falls the most fearful retribution. Men speak 
more profoundly than they know when they say, "a 
man is dead drunk." Yes, the whole man, body and 
soul, has been reduced to insensibility. "Oh, God, that 
men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away 
their brains," — the mouth, the exponent of sense; the 
brain, the exponent of the mind. 

Now since the strong hold of drunkenness is in the 
mind, the chief remedy for this monstrous evil must be 
spiritual; it must operate upon and within the mind. 
To be sure, physical or bodily remedies should not be 
despised or ignored. For the inebriate to be for a 
season, by any means, shut off from intoxicating bever- 
ages, may help restore his body to its normal condition ; 
or the taking of potions which, for a time at least, 
may create a loathing for alcoholic drinks, may be of 
inestimable value, since any respite from the tyranny 
of appetite, when there is any honest desire for refor- 
mation, re-inforces the will in the struggle wholly to 
break away from the bondage of the drinking habit. 



122 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

But in any case, in overcoming this ignoble and de- 
structive vice, the ultimate reliance must always be 
upon the power of the mind. Just as the mind domi- 
nates the body, so it must dominate, control and re- 
press every unholy and blighting appetite or lust. The 
assertion of its power and supremacy is the drunkard's 
brightest hope of salvation. 

But how can the mind prevail over the habit of 
drink? Not by directly grappling with it in an en- 
deavor to overcome it by sheer force of will. Such 
effort in sporadic cases might possibly be effective, but 
in the vast majority of cases it would unquestionably 
result in utter failure. If victory is ever achieved, an- 
other and mightier motive than an inordinate craving 
for strong drink must be introduced into the soul of 
the inebriate, a motive that shall throw into the back- 
ground or expel his mad thirst for liquor. That con- 
quering motive is found in the gospel. When the drunk- 
ard receives Christ into his mind and heart, appre- 
hends him as his Almighty Redeemer, and submits his 
will to him, his soul is so ravished by the grace and 
glory of his Lord, that the old life passes away, while 
a new, and immeasurably better life begins. In other 
words, when Christ comes into his life, drunkenness 
goes out of it. The change thus wrought is radical and 
thorough, just because it takes place in the depths of 
his spiritual being. With the change of heart and will, 
all is changed. 

Now, if this new and mightiest of motives, Christ en- 
throned in the soul, always acted without obstruction, 
we should have invariably the same results. But often, 
by unexpected and untoward circumstances, this mo- 
tive is rendered for a season partially or wholly inop- 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 123 

erative, and then the converted inebriate struggles in 
darkness, or, it may be, falls again into his old habit. 

On the supposition that the second of our group 
of drunkards had really received Christ as his 
Saviour, the vision of his Redeemer, at certain peri- 
ods, was completely shrouded in darkness. When that 
inspiring and saving vision was thus eclipsed he aban- 
doned himself to drink. "The sow that had washed" 
returned to "wallowing in the mire." But again he 
was awakened to the awful fact of his deep and shame- 
ful degradation by a new vision of the Sun of Right- 
eousness that broke through and scattered his darkness. 
And so long as the vision lasted, he led a life of peni- 
tence, sobriety, and devotion to God. And though he 
often fell, it was some new revelation of Christ to his 
soul that lifted him up again. And when his final hour 
drew nigh, his special grief was that he had so often 
and flagrantly sinned against Christ. So the curtain 
fell. Those who knew him best and had suffered most 
from his dissipation believed that his last vision of his 
Lord never ended. 

We have already noted the fact that the third 
of our inebriates was in temperament very emotional. 
He constantly had his ups and downs. Today he 
seemed to be victorious over his appetite for liquor; 
tomorrow his craving for it was so imperious and 
persistent, that his will power was well-nigh gone. 
But in this fierce conflict with his old habits, he was 
never defeated. Though in utter darkness and in the 
depths of despair, he remembered Christ and the vision 
that he had had of him. Even when, under the dread 
spell of temptation, before a liquor saloon, he was un- 
able to move, he cried to his Savior for deliverance and 
was heard. The Master energized his will, so that vie- 



124 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

torious over his craving for drink, he went on his way. 
The vision of Christ that first delivered him from his 
cups, though at times hidden from his view, was never 
forgotten. Christ, as an objective reality, and as a sub- 
jective experience, was the mighty motive that moved 
and saved him. His natural character was weak. But 
stimulated and controlled by his vision of Christ, he 
fought a long bitter battle with his lust for liquor and 
triumphed over it. 

The last of these drunkards, as we have seen, was a 
man of even temperament, never unduly elated, never 
greatly cast down. When he had a vision of Christ as 
his Almighty Saviour, that vision was never wholly ob- 
scured. The Sun of Righteousness that rose in his spir- 
itual sky never set. Captivated by, and absorbed in, 
Christ, all conscious craving for liquor was gone for- 
ever. The meaner and fleshly motive was annihilated 
by the higher and spiritual. 

But how shall we account for the marked variety in 
the experiences of these men, after they professed their 
faith in Christ? The striking differences in their nat- 
ural temperaments will partially explain it, but if we 
would fully understand it, we must take into consider- 
ation the relative vividness with which they apprehend- 
ed Christ. According to the measure in which any one 
receives Christ as his prophet, priest and king, will be 
the firmness and steadiness of his Christian life, and 
that largely irrespective of his temperament or former 
habits. Christ can save even the weakest of men and sub- 
due the most inveterate appetite. Still, we do not claim 
that a man cannot be saved from drunkenness except 
through Christ. Some have been saved from inebriety 
who never heard of Christ; and some who have known 
Christ intellectually and yet never trusted in him as 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 125 

their Savior have overcome stubborn appetites for alco- 
holic drinks. A man who, for more than a quarter of 
a century, has labored in an asylum for drunkards, as- 
sures me that some hard drinkers are saved through 
fear ; that in spite of all that is done for them they will 
continue to drink until they fall down in the gutter 
and are trodden on, until, he says, "they are shaken 
over hell," and then some of them, through sheer 
fright, will abandon their cups forever. 

But admitting all that may be justly claimed for 
other agencies of reform, it remains true that the mo^t 
certain of all remedies for drunkenness is Jesus Christ. 
He receives and transforms the penitent inebriate, and 
reformation, when the outcome of transformation, is 
assured. 

This, then, is our thought. Appetite for intoxicating 
liquor has its seat in both body and soul, but is chiefly 
entrenched in the soul. The chief remedy for it, there- 
fore, must be one that acts upon the soul. This su- 
preme remedy is Christ. He so draws the soul to, and 
delights it in, himself, that the enticement of appetite 
is either held in abeyance, or altogether effaced. Christ 
saves the soul and so saves the body. He saves the 
whole man, both soul and body. While we then wel- 
come every agency which may, in any way, help in sav- 
ing the drunkard, we should never forget that Christ is 
the rational and unfailing antidote of drunkenness, 
that he can save a man from the most deep-rooted ap- 
petite as well as from every other sin. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
A Fugitive Slave. 

Before the war of the rebellion, in 1858, without any- 
premeditated purpose on my part, T assisted in getting 
a fugitive slave safely into Canada. I then lived in 
Janesville, a small but flourishing city of Wisconsin. 
The slave was from Mississippi. Bv some strategem he 
boarded a steamboat at Natchez unobserved, and, by the 
aid of a friend, hid himself in the hold. His sympa- 
thizer secretly giving him food enough to sustain life, 
he was carried northward to La Crosse, where, crawl- 
ing out of his hiding place, he landed, and began his 
flight eastward toward Canada. His knowledge of the 
geography of the country was exceedingly scant, but he 
did know that the asylum which he sought was some- 
where toward the rising sun. 

But the fugitive-slave law was then far from being a 
dead letter, and our fellow citizens of the slave States 
insisted that we, in the free States, were solemnly bound 
to aid in its execution : but if as individuals we could 
not conscientiously do this, they demanded that we 
should at least do nothing to thwart its execution. And 
legally they were unquestionably right. It was a 
United States law and until it was repealed every good 
citizen was under legal obligation to obey it. But mul- 
titudes of men north of Mason and Dixon's line openly 
declared, that, believing slavery to be a grievous moral 
wrong, they would never help to return a fugitive slave 

126 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 127 

to his master; that there were laws higher than the 
fugitive-slave law to which they owed prime obedience ; 
that black slaves were their neighbors, whom they were 
commanded to love even as they loved themselves, and 
that no earthly government had any moral right to 
force them to act contrary to this unmistakable law of 
God. They urged that God commands us to clothe the 
naked, to feed the hungry, and to give shelter to the 
outcast, and that no political government can justly 
intervene and demand that we should not harbor a 
fleeing slave. They declared that if such a bondman, 
having to their knowledge committed no crime, knocked 
at their door they would receive him, minister to his 
necessities and defend him against all comers; that no- 
body unresisted should under their roofs violate the 
sacred rights of Christian hospitality. 

When the fugitive-slave law was enacted, I heard an 
educator of high standing, addressing a large body of 
students in one of our institutions of learning, say : "If 
a fugitive slave, guilty of no offense except that of try- 
ing to escape from his bondage, asks for my hospitality, 
I will receive him and care for him. And if anyone 
comes to seize him in order to return him to slavery, I 
will defend him with whatever weapon may be at hand ; 
I will defend him with the carving knife, with the fire 
poker, with the fire shovel, with the tongs, with a chair, 
with a stick of wood ; no man, in whatever guise, enter- 
ing my door, shall tamely be permitted to trample on 
the sacred laws of hospitality. ' ' And that student body 
cheered his words "to the very echo." 

If any one should say that his words were surcharged 
with unseemly heat, we must not forget that the times 
were hot, that a great moral question was up for settle- 
ment, and that hosts of earnest Christian men and 



128 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

women throughout the North were most profoundly 
agitated. Still, they were not disloyal to the govern- 
ment. They gloried in the Republic, and declared with 
entire sincerity that, if those in authority should arrest 
and punish them for obstructing the execution of the 
fugitive-slave law, they would submit to the penalty 
meted out to them without a murmur. But they deeply 
felt that, for the sake of compromising the differences 
between the North and South in reference to slavery 
the government had gone too far and demanded of 
them what in conscience they could not do. 

But to return to the fugitive slave whom w T e left in 
surroundings utterly strange to him, warily making 
his way eastward. Soon word was flashed from Mis- 
sissippi that a slave had escaped from that State on a 
north-bound steamboat, and asking the authorities of 
the States of the upper Mississippi valley to be on the 
watch for him. On inquiry, the United States marshal 
of Wisconsin learned that an unknown negro had two 
days before left a steamboat at La Crosse; but beyond 
that nothing at all definite could be ascertained. After 
instituting a thorough search he at last discovered his 
trail. But the negro had gotten a fair start and had 
found friends who kept him in hiding by day, and con- 
ducted him forward by night, successfully eluding the 
pursuing marshal. Some young men of Janesville, 
learning that the hiding place of the fugitive was only 
three or four miles away, drove out in a covered wagon 
to his place of refuge and in the evening: brought him 
into the city. 

There was one pastor in Janesville, who often 
preached on the subject of slavery, the Missouri border 
ruffians and the Kansas war. His utterances were gen- 
erally so warmly approved that I was solicited to dis- 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 129 

cu&$ in my pulpit the same topics, but declined so to 
do, on the ground that there were no slaveholders nor 
border ruffians in our city. Now the young men, who 
had taken under their care the escaping chattel, nat- 
urally thought that the pastor, who had so faithfully 
and persistently preached against slavery, would be 
only too glad to receive him and protect him for the 
night. So without the slightest misgiving they drove 
with their charge directly to his door and solicited him 
to harbor the fugitive. But rumor had been flying 
about that the United States marshal was on the track 
of a fleeing slave, and the fugitive at that pastor's door 
was in all probability the one for whom he was search- 
ing. To harbor him was hazardous. At all events, 
whatever may have been the motive that just then 
swayed this abolition preacher, he began to hem and 
haw and said that it was not quite convenient for him 
to receive him. 

The young men, sorely disappointed, were at their 
wit's end. They feared that they might be discovered, 
and the trembling fugitive turned over to the pursuing 
marshal. One of them said, — so they afterwards told 
me, — " Anderson has never here preached against sla- 
very, but it strikes me that his religion has a point to 
it; let's take the fugitive to him." The evening was 
well advanced and it was very dark when they rang my 
door-bell. A young man, whom I had not before 
known, said that he and some friends of his wished to 
see me at the gate. I at once responded to this unusual 
request. Hesitatingly, as though they doubted the suc- 
cess of their prayer, they told their story and asked me 
to receive the fugitive for the night. I did not then 
know that my elder brother in the ministry, the aboli- 
tionist among us by pre-eminence, had found it ijicon- 



130 HITHEETO UNTOLD 

venient to grant hospitality to this trembling chattel; 
but without a moment's hesitation, I said: "Certainly, 
I will do it. There is in my study a very comfortable 
lounge; he can sleep there/ ' 

Then the poor, foot-sore fugitive crawled out of the 
covered wagon. As the light from the window fell on 
his dusky face, I saw how suspicious and fearful he 
was; his eyes rolled hither and thither; he cast furtive 
glances to the right and left. I assured him that I was 
his friend and that he was in no danger. A few steps 
and he was safe in my study. He was hungry and my 
wife brought him a bountiful lunch. When he had de- 
voured the bread and butter, the meat and milk, he laid 
down on the lounge and in a minute was sound asleep. 
Weariness from long and anxious foot-journeys, and 
enforced vigils ended now in unconscious "Sleep that 
knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care." 

Leaving my charge in deep slumber, I sat down 
with the young men, who brought the fugitive to 
my door, to perfect our plans for sending him on to 
Canada. The conductor of the night express train that 
came up from Chicago was an out and out abolitionist. 
When his train pulled into the depot between nine and 
ten o'clock, we had with him three or four minutes ' 
conversation, and he agreed to take the fugitive at half 
past eight the next morning to Chicago. He said that 
he was well acquainted with a conductor on the Michi- 
gan Central, to whom he could safely entrust the fleeing 
slave. All plans were now fully laid and seemed to be 
working smoothly toward the desired end. So I slept 
with satisfaction and peace. 

The next morning I was up early. My chattel guest 
must be prepared for the exciting events of the new 
day. He was still sleeping and I had to wake him from 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 131 

his profound slumber. When he was cleansed and re- 
freshed by soap and water, I gave him a hearty break- 
fast. "Now," I said to him, "you must take off those 
old, ragged clothes and put on these." I handed him 
a suit of my own clothes. He readily put them on and 
the fit was fairly good. I said, "Take this hat, too." 
The hat was too big and we had an amusing time tight- 
ening the band and stuffing cotton batting under the 
sweat-leather; but at last we made it answer the pur- 
pose. I now gave him a bundle of useful articles, and 
carefully told him just what he must do. Slaves were 
required in the presence of white men to keep their 
eyes to the ground, and I saw that our fugitive con- 
stantly did this. So, over and over again, I directed him 
to put his bundle under his arm, and as he walked not 
to look down but straight ahead, as though he was start- 
ing out to do business. I also showed him that it would 
be safest for him to go to the depot alone, about ten 
rods ahead of me. "Now," I said, "we will start." 
That declaration quite upset him. All the dangers of 
the situation seemed at once to flash into his mind. On 
his way to the depot the dreaded United States mar- 
shal might pounce upon him. He was in the depths of 
despair. For the moment his will power was gone. 
Great beads of sweat stood all over his forehead, and 
he was quite unable to move hand or foot. Out of 
deepest pity I spoke to him hopefully and cheerfully. 
This revived his courage, and he walked on toward the 
depot carrying out well the directions that I had given 
him. Just then the abolition pastor, who could not 
"conveniently" keep him over night, .ioined me, and, 
seeing that the fugitive had on a suit of my clothes, re- 
marked, "He looks quite ministerial." 

He was soon at the depot, looking, with his bundle 
under his arm, like a business man waiting for the 



132 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

train. We soon joined him. The train came thunder- 
ing in. The conductor artfully did not appear to rec- 
ognize any of us. But just as the bell of the locomo- 
tive began to ring, standing near the door of the bag- 
gage car without saying a word, he motioned the fugi- 
tive in. He had piled some trunks athwart the corner 
of the car so as to leave a space behind them, and with 
a wave of his hand, he directed the negro to jump over 
the trunks into that vacant space, where he would be 
concealed from every eye. The last glimpse I had of 
my ebony charge, he was just slipping from the top of 
the trunks down into his hiding place. 

We were anxious as to the result; but the next day 
we saw a telegram announcing that the evening before 
a slave crossed the river at Detroit into Canada. I 
could not but wonder what impression the fugitive, 
with his ministerial suit of clothes, made upon his fel- 
lows, who before him had fled to that asylum of free- 
dom. And it now seems to us passing strange, that, in 
1858, a man was compelled to pass through such hard- 
ships and be exposed to such imminent perils in order 
to get out from under the Stars and Stripes, and be re- 
ceived under the sheltering arms of the Union Jack. 
"The world do move," 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Beecher at the Twin-Mountain House. 

In the summer of 1871, spending a few days of rest 
in New Hampshire, I had the pleasure of meeting at 
the Twin-Mountain House, Henry Ward Beecher. We 
had been thrown together several times before, and 
now greeted each other as casual acquaintances. Mr. 
Beecher came to the hotel Saturday evening, and al- 
though he was suffering from hay fever, a self-consti- 
tuted committee pressed him so urgently to preach the 
next forenoon that he reluctantly consented. 

The next morning, at half-past ten, the large parlor 
of the hotel was crowded with an eager, expectant audi- 
ence. In belief, it was a motley throng. Not a few 
were freethinkers, to whom such doctrines as sin and 
the atonement by blood were specially distasteful. Of 
all this Mr. Beecher was fully aware. The query in 
some minds was, in these circumstances, will he be 
faithful and fearless in delivering his message? He en- 
tered the parlor and took the vacant chair which was 
waiting for him. Every eye was upon him. Without 
rising to his feet, he said, "Let us sing the familiar 
hymn, " 'Kock of Ages cleft for me. 7 " Christ cruci- 
fied is the pith and core of that sacred song. Thus the 
key-note of the meeting was sound, scriptural ortho- 
doxy. The hymn was sung with a will, believers and 
skeptics joining heartily in the strains of the music. 
The singing over, Mr. Beecher called on a plain Con- 

133 



134 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

gregational deacon to pray, and as he poured out his 
heart in supplication, we seemed to be in a fervent 
prayer-meeting. At the close of the earnest petition, 
Mr. Beecher said, "We will now sing the good old 
hymn, 'There is a fountain filled with blood/ " He 
could not have chosen a hymn the thought of which was 
dearer to a part of his congregation, nor one more re- 
pulsive to the freethinkers present, but all, under the 
spell of his wonderful personality, sang it heartily. 
Then, after prayer by a Baptist layman, he preached 
on "Christian Experience." Every word of his ser- 
mon was true to the Scriptures and to Christ. He 
illustrated his thoughts with such aptness that all pres- 
ent, adults and children, hung breathlessly on his lips. 
And when the last word had been spoken, and the last 
hymn sung, the audience seemed loth to quit the spot, 
where -they had been stirred and charmed by that mas- 
terful eloquence. 

A little boy with whom I was well acquainted, wish- 
ing very much to hear Mr. Beecher again, asked me 
who was going to preach at night. Knowing that a 
lady from Boston had consented to speak, I answered, 
"A woman.' ' "A woman!" he exclaimed. "Certain- 
ly," said I, "why do you speak in that way?" He 
replied, ' ' I never knew that women preached. ' ' He was 
in a brown study for a minute or two, and then to my 
great surprise and amusement asked, "Has she got any 
whiskers?" Laughing inside, I replied with great 
gravity, as though shocked at his inquiry, "Why do 
you ask such a question as that ? " He said : ' ' Grandma 
took me to Barnum's in New York, and I saw two 
women there who had whiskers, and I thought it was 
one of them." Early the next morning, I met Mr. 
Beecher on the ground floor of the hotel, and related 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 135 

to him this incident. His sides shook with laughter, as 
he said, "Let me go and tell my wife and sister." And 
then, as though he were a youth in his teens, he ran up 
two flights of stairs to their room, and told them the 
funny thought of the little boy. 

The lady from Boston preached at night. She was 
sprightly and entertaining. She taught that sin is sim- 
ply a disease, which requires treatment only in the hos- 
pital. A vivacious Englishman, who was intending to 
start for his home the next morning, changed his mind 
and concluded to remain in this country six weeks long- 
er, since he learned, as he said, from her discourse that 
it was vastly easier getting to heaven on this side of 
the Atlantic than on the other. 

During the week which followed, Mr. Beecher re 
ceived some proof sheets of his "Life of Christ,' ' the 
first volume of which was then passing through the 
press. He asked me to read the preface, and see if I 
could find any mistakes in it. I pointed out two words 
which had been erroneously printed as one word. "Is 
there a dictionary here?" said he. None could be 
found in the hotel. "Well," let it alone," he ex- 
claimed, "if those words never before formed a com- 
pound, they will after this volume appears." 

Still later he brought me the passage of his book in 
which he teaches that Christ had no human soul, but 
was simply a human body in which God dwelt. He 
asked me what I thought of that? I told him that to 
my mind his view was not correct. "But that Christ 
had a human soul," he said, "was a notion developed 
by controversy." I maintained that even if that were 
true, it would not prove the doctrine which he ad- 
vanced to be correct; that the Scriptures taught that 
Christ grew in wisdom, and was tempted in all points 



136 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

like as we are, and that such, declarations would be 
meaningless, if Christ did not have a human soul. He 
then said: "Dr. Thomas Conant has examined all the 
expositions of Scripture contained in the forthcoming 
volume. I do not know very much about interpreta- 
tion. I would not publish such a book as this without 
having some competent critic examine the exegesis 
which I make of the passages of the Scripture quoted 
in it. I have been all my life very much like a butcher 
in the market; if you want a piece of meat, he cuts it 
off and lets you have it. So in my preaching, I have 
cut off one piece of the gospel and given it to my 
congregation in the morning, and then another at night, 
but to find out how the critter is put together is a 
very different affair.' ' These were wise and suggestive 
words. "But," said I, "what did Dr. Conant think of 
your notion of the person of Christ; of the doctrine 
that Christ had no human soul?" With a look of in- 
describable drollery, pulling his nose with his thumb 
and finger, as Dr. Conant often did when about to give 
a gentle hint of dissent, he replied, "Dr. Conant said 
that he regarded it as an ingenious view." 

During my stay at the hotel he told me of the course 
of lectures on preaching which he was soon to deliver 
at Yale. He spoke freely of his future plans of work. 
He was then fifty-eight, and said that when he was 
sixty, it was his purpose to leave the pulpit, and to de- 
vote the rest of his life to journalism. He then evi- 
dently had no intimation of the awful storm of detrac- 
tion which was so soon to burst upon him. 

At the hotel he was a universal favorite. He chatted 
with all sorts of people. He bubbled over with fun. 
He played with the children and romped in the fields 
where he gathered wild flowers, of which he was pas- 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 137 

sionately fond. He occasionally drove a few miles into 
the mountains, but he would never do this unless he 
he had a strong, spirited span of horses. He played 
tenpins vigorously. He chose the largest ball, and 
often at a single bowl knocked down every pin. Once 
when he wished to play, the boy who set up the pins 
was absent, and another boy, a guest at the hotel, vol- 
unteered to set them up. At the close of the game 
Mr. Beecher offered him twenty-five cents for his ser- 
vice. The lad, proud of spirit, refused it, saying, "T 
am not the boy that sets up pins." "Who are you?" 

said Mr. Beecher." He replied, "I am Prof. 's 

boy." "0, you are," said Mr. Beecher, "then you 
must have fifty cents." He now thrust a fifty-cent 
piece into the vest pocket of the protesting, struggling 
lad, held him at arm's length for a moment, then 
jumping away from him, he ran with all his might into 
the hotel, leaving the wondering and defeated boy with 
fifty cents in his pocket. 

This is in part what I saw of this truly great man 
during my summer rest in the White Mountains. He 
impressed me with his unusual life and power. His 
soul was full of sunshine, and all around him were 
made happy by its radiance. Strong men admired him ; 
little children loved him. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
The Late Hon. Leland Stanford. 

He was more than an ordinary man. His vast es- 
tate of $40,000,000 was acquired by his own foresight 
and energy. It stands as the exponent of his intellec- 
tual ability. He did not, however, hoard it like a miser, 
but, in addition to a host of minor benefactions, he 
gave $20,000,000 for the purpose of founding a uni- 
versity at Palo Alto. 

It is not my aim in this brief chapter to give an out- 
line of his entire career, but to relate the incidents of 
a single interview with him. In the summer of 1879 it 
was my privilege to spend a part of a day and night 
with him at Menlo Park, near San Francisco. He took 
me over his great farm there, and showed me his fine, 
blooded horses, in which he took great delight. In the 
evening as we sat in the drawing-room, he displayed 
the instantaneous photographs of his horses, taken 
when they were trotting and running. He compared 
their positions or attitudes when in motion, with the 
positions given trotting and running horses by dis- 
tinguished artists, and claimed that by this test of the 
photograph, he had convicted the most noted painters 
of horses of gross error. These photographs were af- 
terwards used to illustrate the statements of an inter- 
esting article, prepared under the eye of Mr. Stanford, 
on the positions of moving horses, which appeared, I 
believe, in Harper's Monthly. 

138 



HITHEETO UNTOLD 139 

The discussion of the photographs having ended, he 
began to talk on the monopolies of California. He had 
the most intimate knowledge of them, and traced sug- 
gestively their inception and growth, maintaining that 
they had developed the material resources of the State 
as no other agency could have done, and instead of op- 
pressing laborers had given them employment and 
higher wages. His talk was entertaining and instruc- 
tive, even if the correctness of his conclusions were 
doubtful. 

Just at that time the sand-lot excitement was at 
white heat. Dennis Kearney, without linen collar, and 
in woolen shirt sleeves, was bitterly denouncing capi- 
talists to crowds of workmen in the East. In the sand- 
lots, on each Sabbath day, the Chinese were denounced 
as a menace to all American labor. So this subject 
naturally claimed our attention. Mr. Stanford did not. 
regard the Chinese as a desirable element of our popu- 
lation, but said that those who denounced them in such 
unmeasured terms disregarded the most palpable facts. 
He maintained that the Chinese had done much for the 
development of California. The Central Pacifiic Rail- 
road could not have been built when it was, without 
their aid. He said that they kept their bodies scrupu- 
lously clean. Every one of them who worked on the 
railroad, bathed every day from head to foot. They 
were also peaceable. In the construction of the west- 
ern portion of the road, where the Chinese were em- 
ployed, there was only one murder, and then an Irish- 
man killed a Chinaman; while on the eastern portion, 
where white men alone were employed, there was, 
on the average, a murder for every mile of the 
road. He said that the Chinese, so far from low- 
ering the wages of American laborers, had advanced 



140 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

them along some lines. As household servants they 
received from twenty to sixty dollars a month. The 
result was that the wages of all domestic servants 
were increased. Moreover, where an Irish girl and 
Chinamen were employed in the same house, as they 
were in his, it made Bridget a lady, since she ordered 
the Chinamen to do the drudgery and was obeyed. 

Towards midnight the subject of education came up. 
I told him of the splendid opportunity which was then 
presented to him to lay broad and deep the financial 
foundation of the University of Chicago. He listened 
attentively, and then said: "I have never given any 
thought to the subject of education. I have at pres- 
ent only one ambition, and that is, to construct rail- 
roads and whip Tom Scott." He and Mr. Scott of 
Pennsylvania, were then in conflict over a railroad 
route in Mexico. "But," he added thoughtfully: "I 
have a son, he must be educated, and it will soon be 
necessary for me to think about institutions of learn- 
ing, but I cannot do it now." 

Not long after he took his son to Europe where the 
lad was stricken with Roman fever and died. Consid- 
ering what monument he should rear to his only child, 
he determined to build a university. Whether our 
conversation had any vital connection with the great 
enterprise, I never knew. We met, and talked of in- 
stitutions of learning. He declared that, for the sake 
of his son, he must, at no distant day, carefully con- 
sider the subject of education. That son soon died, 
and he founded a great university to perpetuate the 
memory of his departed child. He sent me, as they 
were printed from time to time, all the documents 
which pertained to its organization. He seemed thus 
to testify that our conversation, at midnight, on higher 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 141 

education, was not forgotten. Be that as it may, while 
he was led to create a great institution simply to com- 
memorate the name of his only son, by that magnificent 
gift to education he has secured for himself undying 
fame. 



CHAPTER XXX. 
Reminiscences of Spurgeon. 

On a bright Sunday morning in July, 1863, I sat 
down for the first time in Spurgeon 's tabernacle. At 
the appointed moment the great preacher stepped un- 
heralded into his semicircular pulpit. He was then in 
full physical vigor. At once he invoked the divine 
blessing. Without any apparent effort the musical 
tones of his voice perfectly filled every part of that 
great auditorium. To me, his enunciation was mar- 
velous. Every letter of every word was distinctly ut- 
tered. And what was of vastly greater importance, in 
his prayer he evidently came into the very presence- 
chamber of the King and asked him importunately and 
tenderly for his blessing on the worshiping congrega- 
tion and on himself. 

Then he read a hymn naturally, so as to give the 
sense of the words: 

"Loud hallelujahs to the Lord, 

From distant worlds where creatures dwell, 

Let heaven begin the solemn word, 

And sound it dreadful down to hell. ,, 

The whole congregation sang. The sound of their uni- 
ted voices was like the noise of many waters. 

The song ended. Silence seemingly absolute ensued. 
Every eye of the vast throng was on the preacher, every 

142 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 143 

ear was attent. He began to read with pertinent, lu- 
minous comment the one hundred and fourth psalm. 
As he went on the interest increased; it became in- 
tense. The physical universe, of which the psalm 
treats, seemed resplendent with the glory of God. We 
were touched, swayed, and lifted up till I am sure 
that each one, with the Psalmist and his eloquent ex- 
pounder, in his heart of hearts cried : "I will sing unto 
the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my' 
God while I have my being/ ' 

The preacher was thus borne on the wings of divine 
inspiration into his prayer, which was now offered. 
The first of it was praise, such as I had never before 
heard. The attributes of God seemed to be unveiled to 
the eye of the worshiper, and in diction freighted with 
poetical imagery he gave fit expression to the vision 
which was passing before him. Thanksgiving and pe- 
tition followed praise. One utterance was called forth 
by an important public event of the preceding week. 
"0 Lord," he said, "we thank thee for the dis-estab- 
lishment of the Church of Ireland; now let the dis-es- 
tablishment of the Church of England speedily fol- 
low/ ' The prayer occupied only about five minutes; 
but the psalm and the prayer together had attuned the 
souls of the great congregation to praise, so that the 
second hymn was sung with matchless fervor. 

At last came the sermon. The subject of it was, 
"Confessing Christ." It had been evidently carefully 
prepared. The preacher possessed his subject, and his 
subject possessed him. He did not rant, nor spout, nor 
declaim, but talked naturally out of a full mind and 
heart. Like his Master, he used the common words of 
the people — words of poetry, eloquence and power. 
His voice was as clear as a belL His discourse ran on 



144 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

like a limpid brook. Every thought was clearly pre- 
sented and illustrated by objects and incidents familiar 
to all. 

One head of his sermon was that we ought sometimes 
to go out of our way to confess Christ. He said: "I 
must go out of my way to confess him this morning.' ' 
Then he told us of Prince Albert 's childlike faith in 
Jesus. In that faith he lived and died. Yet a papisti- 
cal inscription was then being chisled on his monument. 
If the Prince knew it he would turn over in his grave. 
Then stretching his hand up towards the heavens and 
looking thither, his whole frame quivering with emo- 
tion, his voice rang out like a trumpet, as he cried: 
"Ye shades of Knox and Luther and Calvin, have ye 
clean gone from the earth, and is there nobody left to re- 
prove wickedness in high places?" The effect was elec- 
trical. The whole audience bent forward toward the 
preacher, drawn by some mysterious, irresistible power. 

When he had preached forty minutes he stopped and 
said that he had made an agreement with his deacons 
not to preach longer than that; but that we must per- 
mit him to steal five minutes of our time. He now 
gathered up the thought of his discourse into a beauti- 
ful, forceful parable. How simply, naturally, elo- 
quently it was all done. At its close he said: "Such 
is the parable; live it out; Amen." He pronounced 
the benediction, and disappeared. 

The impressions of that hour can never be effaced. 
The great preacher led me captive. He stirred my 
soul to its depths. My spirit reacted on my body. 
Waves of nervous excitement, akin to chills, chased 
each other down my backbone. At times I hardly 
knew whether I was in the body or out of the body. 
Several times afterwards I listened to Mr. Spurgeon, 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 145 

but never again when he seemed to possess so much 
power. 

On Wednesday evening I attended prayer-meeting 
at the Tabernacle. It was very informal, just as such 
a meeting should be. The first of the hour was taken 
up with singing, prayer and speaking. Then several 
young men who had been sent to the Epsom horse- 
races to distribute tracts and testaments made their 
report. They said that the managers of the races had 
done all they could to hinder their work. The men 
of the turf declared that they were greatly shocked 
at the impropriety of distributing the Scriptures on 
the grounds of the races. Mr. Spurgeon, addressing 
these Christian workers, said: "I never knew before 
what tender consciences these horse-racers have. Go 
back tomorrow and do your work bravely. The gos- 
pel is a grand impertinence to be thrust in just where 
it is least wanted." 

He read the Scriptures at the close of the meeting, 
instead of at the beginning. The passage read was the 
account of the demoniac of Gadara. How vividly by 
his comment he drew the picture. We could see the 
demoniac in his frenzy snapping his chains asunder, 
wandering naked among the tombs, the blood trinkling 
down his body as he cut himself with stones. Feared 
and deserted by all, Jesus delivers him from demons 
and saves him. Then we see him go home. Wife and 
children catch sight of him and fearfully peep out of 
window and door. But his body is no longer naked; 
he speaks to them in tones of gentleness and love. 
Their fear subsides; they open the door, and there fol- 
lows the joyful, tearful meeting. That picture drawn 
with such masterful strokes still hangs in the gallery 
of my memory as fresh as if it were painted but yes- 



146 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

terday. This was the last exercise of the evening. So 
we were sent away thinking of the wonderful love of 
Jesus, and of his power to transform and save the 
vilest and most hopeless of men. 

In the summer of 1869, I heard Mr. Spurgeon for 
the last time. His text was from the Song of Solomon. 
He found in it the church, the bride, and Christ, her 
lover and spouse. At the close of the service, we were 
invited into his room back of the pulpit. Dr. Park, 
professor in Andover Theological Seminary, and Rev. 
Mr. Furber, of Newton Centre, Mass., both Congrega- 
tionalists, were present. Dr. Park said: "I have been 
in London seven weeks, and have heard no one preach 
except Mr. Spurgeon; he is my pastor now." He was 
evidently making a study of him as a preacher. 

I asked Mr. Spurgeon what he taught in his theologi- 
cal training-school ? He replied: "Formerly the method 
of making pins in England was this: one man cut up 
the wire, another made the heads, another put the wire 
and heads together, while the fourth man sharpened 
the point. My work in the school is simply to sharpen 
the point.' ' 

He then spoke of his teacher of theology who was a 
Congregationalism and said, that some of his brethren 
criticised him because he did not employ a Baptist; 
but he added, " I do not see why they should find fault 
with me for employing a Congregational hen to hatch 
my ducks." He said his students were urging their 
teacher to receive apostolic baptism, but during the 
past week he had replied to them that it had been the 
great effort of his life to keep his head above water. 

He spoke in great praise of his brother James, his 
associate pastor. He said: "He is the best fellow in 
the world ; he rides behind without complaint. It takes 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 147 

a great deal of grace to do that." It was an hour of 
rare social enjoyment. In much of Mr. Spurgeon's 
conversation there was a quiet humor; at times his 
words flashed with wit, and the whole of his speech was 
full of gentleness and a broad Christian charity. 

During the w r eek I met James, who told me that his 
brother Charles was very fond of mathematics, and that 
every year he read some book of higher mathematics; 
and while he made no pretense to linguistic scholarship, 
he read his Greek Testament with ease, and that there 
was not a verse in his Hebrew Bible that he had not 
read and re-read. He said also that during his vaca- 
tions he often read, for pleasure, without note or com- 
ment, some of the Greek tragedies. This was a revela- 
tion. It explains the natural order and beauty of his 
sermons. His mind was sharpened not only by the 
study of the writings of the old English divines, but 
also by the mathematics and the Greek classics. He 
was thus intellectually fitted to preach so that the very 
ends of the earth listened entranced. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Lee Foresees Grant 's Triumph. 

I wish to narrate a deeply interesting incident of 
the war of the rebellion. It is not a myth which has 
grown up by the lapse of time, but an event, which I 
learned very soon after its occurrence, for which there 
is the most direct and reliable evidence. Since it is 
an incident of General Grant's Wilderness campaign, 
I have often regretted that I did not relate it to him 
before his death. 

He had begun his famous left-flank movement, and 
had reached Spottsylvania Court House. General Lee, 
having apprehended the design of his great antagonist, 
moved on the inner and shorter line of defense, and 
was there before him, and in position to resist him. 
In Lee's line of battle there was for some reason a 
sharp salient or angle. This the practiced eye of Grant 
at once detected. He ordered General Hancock, under 
the cover of darkness to move his force up to within 
1200 yards of it. At half -past four the next morning 
that gallant general carried it by storm. Four thou- 
sand prisoners, several stands of colors and forty or 
fifty cannon were taken. 

The ground which the Federal troops secured they 
stubbornly held. All day long Lee vainly tried to 
drive them back. He made five determined onslaughts 
and in every instance was bloodily repulsed. The con- 
testants were at times during the day close to each 

148 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 149 

other. Occasionally rival colors were planted on op- 
posite sides of the breastworks. The dead and wounded 
lay heaped upon one another A beech tree eighteen 
inches in diameter was cut down by Minie balls A 
section of this tree is now in the museum of war relics 
at Washington. The place on account of that day's 
fighting was christened the "bloody angle.' ' 

Eight there, amid that awful carnage, at three 
o'clock in the afternoon, the rain descending in tor- 
rents, the Union troops sang as they fought, 

"The Union forever! hurrah, boys! hurrah! 

Down with the traitor, up with the star; 

"While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, 

Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom." 

Night at last came to the relief of those heroic sol- 
diers who had survived shot and shell and the whiz- 
zing Minie balls. 

Now look upon another scene. There stood within 
the lines of the Confederate army a farmhouse. It 
was General Lee's headquarters. It had a spacious 
kitchen. There the general, at night, called a council 
of war. Chairs were brought in and placed in a row 
by the walls round that large room. The subordinate 
generals of the Confederate army filed in and were 
seated in them. The owner of the house rose to leave, 
but was courteously requested by General Lee to re- 
main. He did so and sat where his eye rested on the 
face of the General. Lee was sad and spoke only a few 
words during the sitting of the council. He asked the 
officers present, beginning at his right and going round 
the room, each to give his opinion on the present situ- 
ation, and to express his judgment as to what ought 



150 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

next to be done. While they were doing this the lips 
of Lee at times quivered and, now and then, tears trick- 
led down his cheeks. When all had spoken, some mo- 
ments of absolute silence ensued. When at last the 
General spoke, he thanked his officers for their opin- 
ions, and added, substantially: "I have tried all day 
to break the line of the opposing army and I have not 
sufficient force to do it. I fear, as the result of this 
day's fighting, that we shall finally be forced back 
upon Richmond and be compelled to surrender.' ' He 
then informed his generals that, in the morning, he 
would issue his orders, and dismissed the council. 

Some of us remember how General Grant at that 
time was censured by many for that great battle. He 
was denounced as heartless and as a butcher; but in 
the light of this Confederate council of war, held at 
the close of that eventful day, and of the words of the 
distinguished leader of the Confederate armies, we now 
learn that the silent, tenacious, patriotic Grant saw 
more clearly than his carping critics what must be done 
to save the Republic, and was unswervingly doing it. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
A Reminiscence of Sherman and Grant. 

During General Grant's second Presidential term, I 
visited Washington. Soon after my arrival I met un- 
expectedly two old college mates, one of whom was a 
brother of Major-General Sehofield. Sherman was 
then General of the Army. In 1860 and '61 he was 
one of my fellow citizens in St. Louis. I was pastor of 
a church there, he was president of a horse-railway. 
Feeling quite at liberty so to do, I took my former 
college acquaintances to the War Department and in- 
troduced them to my old neighbor and friend. He re- 1 
ceived us with all his wonted enthusaism. It evidently 
gave him great delight to do all that he could for our 
benefit and happiness. He showed us all the objects 
of historical interest in the Department and, what was 
better, descanted on them in his own lively and im- 
passioned way, until he filled us with much of his own 
fervor. 

When he came to the room where hung the portraits 
of the former secretaries of war, he set forth in flash- 
light sentences the prominent traits of many of them. 
To our great amusement he painted in vivid colors their 
faults and foibles, as well as their virtues. There was 
no bitterness or sting in his words, but much drollery 
and good humor. Speaking in commendation of Jef- 
ferson Davis as Secretary of War, he dropped into 
reminiscence and discussed some features of the gigan- 

151 



152 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

tic struggle for the Union. I spoke of one of his own 
campaigns, and, among other things, said, "General, 
some say that you burned Atlanta." In a moment he 
was aflame with excitement; he began to swing his 
right arm round and round, his hand describing a cir- 
cle or ellipse, as he exclaimed : "I burn Atlanta ! Why 
should I? That would have done me no good. There 
were two large buildings in the city, filled with war 
material; I couldn't take it with me, I couldn't leave 
it behind me; if I did leave it, it might fall into the 
hands of the enemy; the only safe thing to do was to 
destroy it. So when I started for Savannah, I detailed 
two regiments to blow up those buildings and burn up 
everything in them. It made a great fire. That's all 
there is of the story that I burned Atlanta." 

"You see," he now continued a little more calmly, 
"no competent commander ever leaves anything behind 
him that the enemy might seize and use against him. 
If he leaves a fortress in his rear, he dismantles it and 
renders it useless. Joshua was an able general; he 
would not leave behind him the great fortress of Jeri- 
cho until he saw its walls down flat, and if he had lived 
in our day, he would have blown them up with gun- 
powder. ' ' 

He now abruptly asked: "Are you going to call on 
the President?" We replied that we had no business 
of any kind with the President, and felt that we 
ought not to intrude ourselves upon him. Quick as 
a flash he responded : ' ' Oh, Grant is a good fellow. Go 
in and see him." He took a card from his vest pocket, 
and hastily wrote a note introducing us to him. Thus 
exhorted and fortified by the distinguished General, we 
entered the White House, and sent to the President our 
introductory card. 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 153 

While we waited for his response, we mutually 
agreed that, when ushered into his presence, Reverend 
Mr. Schofield should begin the conversation by men- 
tioning the fact that Major-General Schofield was his 
brother. The usher soon returned and conducted us to 
the President. As we entered his room, rising from a 
table where he was apparently engaged in writing some 
state paper, he said quietly, but heartily, "Good morn- 
ing, gentlemen," and gave us his hand. We in turn 
assured him of our delight in seeing him. And now, 
our salutations over, there followed an embarrassing 
period of silence, in which seconds seemed to be min- 
utes, while we waited for Mr. Schofield to begin the 
conversation according to agreement. But he, through 
sheer fright, was as still as a stone. We stood as dumb 
as three mummies, glancing at each other and at the 
President. The President himself was embarrassed and 
blushed like a country lass. I broke the awkward si- 
lence by saying what our friend, in his trepidation, had 
forgotten to say. All were instantly at ease. The 
President began to talk freely with us about the war 
and national affairs. I was delighted with his skill as 
a conversationalist. He never hesitated for a word, 
and the right word was always at hand to express his 
thought. His sentences were terse, simple and com- 
plete. The clearness and directness of his speech was 
indicative of a man of power. But I can never forget 
how one of the greatest generals of modern times, then 
President of the United States, blushed as he stood be- 
fore three of his humble fellow citizens, one of whom, 
appointed to be the chief speaker, was dumb through 
embarrassment, while the other two stood in silent 
amazement, because the chosen chief speaker failed to 
utter a single word. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

New Testimonies Concerning Lincoln. 

I write simply as a reporter, but the incidents that' 
I record from the lips of eye witnesses are too valu- 
able to remain untold. The first reveals the native, 
ready wit and wisdom of Mr. Lincoln. Awhile before 
he became nationally prominent, he was one day pass- 
ing along the sidewalk in Springfield, Illinois, leading 
two of his sons, one by his right hand, the other by his 
left, and both were crying aloud. A gentleman who 
met them asked Mr. Lincoln what was the matter with 
the boys ? He promptly replied : ' ' Just what 's the mat- 
ter with the whole world; I have got three nuts and 
each wants two." 

The second incident reveals his deeply religious 
nature. Mrs. Rebecca Pomroy of Massachusetts, a 
widow, about thirty-five years of age, joined the corps 
of army nurses and was sent to do duty in the hos- 
pitals at Washington. In the winter of 1861 and '62 
there was much sickness in the National Capital, and 
unusual mortality among children. The President's 
family did not escape. Willie, the pet of the house- 
hold, became dangerously ill. Mr. Lincoln asked for 
a nurse, and Mrs. Pomroy was detailed for duty at the 
White House. No better person for that important post 
could have been found. She was a woman of culture 
and refinement, and, having been herself tried in the 
furnace of affliction, knew how to sympathize with 

154 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 155 

those who were in the depths of sorrow. Moreover, 
she was a thoughtful Christian without any illusions, 
utterly untouched by fanaticism. She knew, however, 
by experience what it was to walk with God, and have 
real communion with him. Such a woman is the best 
of all judges of genuine Christian character. 

Willie, fatally ill, though no one then knew it, was 
put under her wise and motherly care. One morning, 
kneeling by his bedside, she prayed for him as none bu1 
a great-hearted Christian woman can. "While sne 
prayed, she was half-conscious that some one came into 
the room and stood near her, but this did not interrupt 
her petition. She poured out her great sympathetic 
soul, not only for the sick child, but also for his bur- 
dened, sad-hearted father. When she rose from her 
knees she found Mr. Lincoln standing by her. His 
cheeks were wet with tears. He took her by the hand 
and in tremulous tones thanked her for her prayer, 
both for Willie and himself. He said he was so occu- 
pied with the affairs of the nation that he could not 
care as he ought for his own sick boy. Willie died, 
and those who knew the President most intimately, saw 
that a wonderful change had been wrought in him. 

The duties of Mrs. Pomroy frequently called her, in 
the earlier part of the day, into the President's office, 
where she found him again and again reading the 
Bible. And Nicolay and Hay, in their great political 
biography of Lincoln, also call attention to his famil- 
iarity with the Scriptures, and to the fact that he al- 
ways kept a copy of the Bible near him on the desk or 
table. And it is worthy of special note that Mrs. Pom- 
roy, deeply religious and clear-headed, for weeks often 
meeting and conversing with Mr. Lincoln, never there- 
after for a moment doubted that he was one of the 
truest of Christians. 



156 HITHERTO UNTOLD 

After the death of Willie, she remained at the White 
House for nearly three months, doing what she could 
to help and comfort the sorrowing household. Seeing 
how true and sincere she was, the President gave her 
his confidence and at times conversed with her without 
reserve. In such social intercourse his real character 
was revealed to her. She was charmed with his honesty 
and simplicity, and with his sane and just estimate of 
the social formalities incident to his great office. He 
did not despise them, but understood perfectly how hol- 
low they sometimes were. In this, she said, he was 
quite the opposite of Mrs. Lincoln, and gave the fol- 
lowing incident as fairly illustrating the characteristics 
of each. One evening the President was to give a pop- 
ular reception at 7 :30. Mrs. Lincoln, eager, restive, 
impatient, began at 2 P. M., to get herself ready for it. 
She donned one dress after another, casting each in 
turn aside, on account of some trivial defect that she 
found in it, and it was seven o'clock before she com- 
pleted her toilet for the reception. She and her at- 
tendants were by that time quite worn out by the or- 
deal through which they had passed. 

At a quarter past seven, Mr. Lincoln, quite ex- 
hausted by his great responsibilities, and the exacting 
duties of the day, came to accompany his wife to the 
reception. He made some droll and pleasant observa- 
tion that put everybody in good humor. A pair of 
white kid gloves were handed to him. Sitting down to 
snatch a moment's rest, he put on the glove for the 
left hand, and buttoned it at the wrist. He then put 
on the glove for his right hand and, attempting to 
button it with the gloved fingers of his left, failed. 
So, stretching out his long arm, he said, "Mrs. Pomroy, 
won't you button this old rat skin?" 



HITHERTO UNTOLD 157 

At last, Mrs. Pomroy felt that she must return to her 
duties in the hospital. Mr. Lincoln, wishing her to re- 
main in his famly, tried to dissuade her from her pur- 
pose. When, however, he found that with her it was 
a matter of conscience, he made no further objection, 
and wished her great success in her difficult and great- 
ly needed work. She left the White House in the morn- 
ing. The President was at breakfast. She came to bid 
him good-bye, and said to him, "If you would give me 
some little thing as a keepsake, just some trifle, I should 
think so much of it. ' ' " Certainly I will, ' ' he responded, 
and taking up his coffee cup and saucer, said, "Take 
these.' ' 

No gift from him could have been more highly prized. 
After the war Mrs. Pomroy became the Matron of the 
Newton Home for Orphan Girls. There on the mantel- 
piece in the parlor I used to see that coffee-cup and 
saucer, more precious to its owner than rubies. But 
material things of greatest worth, in unexpected ways, 
perish. That Home for Orphans was consumed by fire, 
and with it the breakfast-table gift of the immortal 
Lincoln. 



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